Trust is Different Here
by Lulu Bee
Summary: For Erin, magic has always been hiding in her life, but when she accidently finds a plot that involves kiddnapping her and her friends, she sees that there is more to her than meets the eye meanwhile, a boy called Dylan is also dragged into the crazy plot
1. Prologue

**Hi! This my 1st ever story, so sorry if it's really bad. I haven't coppied anyone's work, and everything in this is my own. Hope you enjoy! Please Review!

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Prologue

A tiny man wearing a tweed suit and long overcoat sat down on a chair in a modern, up to date office, on the top floor of a mysterious building.

"Something is about to happen," He said, twitching nervously, "Something big!"

The man on the other side of the desk was the opposite of him in many ways. For a start, he was overly tall for his age, nearing two metres, and had to bend down at every doorway he came across, so as not to bump his head. He was intimidating, with large, muscular arms, and, what with his height, and muscle, it was a surprise that his long, long legs could hold him upright without snapping.

"I hope this something is bigger than you, Mr Girringham, otherwise I will suffer from severe disappointment,"

Mr Girringham licked his lips, and looked around nervously, "Oh yes, its way bigger than anything that has ever happened before. Look!"

He reached into the deep pocket of his massive (well, for him) coat, and pulled out some playing cards. The playing cards were not at all that, they were actually cards of the future. He shuffled them expertly, while the man on the other side of the desk tapped his fingers impatiently. Mr Girringham dealt out the cards. Four red cards, with mysterious and unfathomable patterns on them, a fluorescent yellow lightning bolt streaked across the card, a dangerous contrast to the midnight coloured black of the rest of the card, a single, simple circle on a plain white background, and, finally, a card with no patterns, just four colours, black, dark blue, brown and grey, that all melted into each other.

The other man leant forward, "What does it mean?" He demanded.

Mr Girringham shifted uncomfortably at the closeness of him, "Well, the four red cards, they mean new and different, right?" He muttered awkwardly, "Then, the lightning bolt means soon, and the circle means powerful, but the last one…" He coughed self-consciously, "The last one, I have no idea about,"

The man slammed his palm down on the table, and Mr Girringham cringed as he saw a crack begin to form in the wood.

"What do you mean; I have no idea about the last one? You're supposed to be able to tell the future!" He yelled.

"Well… Er… in truth? I've never dealt that card before, haven't even seen it, and I didn't know it was in my pack of cards until I first dealt this," He stuttered, gesturing to the cards.

The man frowned sceptically, but let it go. "If you discover what it is, I want you to tell me immediately! Now go! I have business to attend to!"

Mr Girringham scurried out of the room like a mouse, not needing to be told a second time.

As soon as he was gone, a business man in a blue suit and polished shoes so shiny that his reflection could be seen stepped out from behind a filling cabinet across the office. He came over to the desk and smiled knowingly at the man behind the desk.

The man smiled back, "Do you know what this means Lesley?"

The business man, or Lesley, replied, "Of course I do. We gotta find these 'powerful, knew and different' people, and use them. Before Lockhore does,"

The man behind the desk nodded, "Before Lockhore does,"


	2. Chapter 1

**So? did u enjoy the prologue? hope you did! This is the first chapter! :) I'm gonna dedicate it 2 mah awesome sister; Sarah B!**

**Please review!**

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Erin

**Part 1**

If there was one way for adults to get there own back on kids, it would be school, I thought as I sat down for my Biology lesson, the last lesson of the day. Fire, my best friend, and her twin brother, Jam, came in and sat down next to me on the bench.

"Yo! What's up?" Jam asked me as he dropped his stuff on the bench.

Jam was a failing student, so he had to take extra lessons, and sometimes miss other lessons to catch up to normal standards.

"Nothings up, this is school, remember, if anything interesting has ever happened here, I'll eat my socks," I told Jam.

"All sorts of interesting things happen at school!" Fire burst out. Jam and I stared at her.

Fire is one of those abnormally geeky, quiet, teachers pets, who is forever getting A* for everything. "They had that run for charity, the other week! And the school fete the day before last also that sponsored sports day! Tones of interesting things happen here!"

"Um… Fire, the run was three miles long, half the people got lost (which _was_ kinda funny) and only one person actually ran it, which was the PE teacher." I pointed out.

"Yeah Erin has a point, the school fete sold fruit, little kiddies toys and old socks, not interesting, and on a completely different planet to cool." Jam added.

"The sponsored sports day," I said, "Hmm… let me think… there was an official total of ten people who actually turned up (minus teachers and parents) and all of those were, like in the sixth form and were only doing it because they had suggested it."

"Well… that was because… because… argh! All right you win, but learning stuff is still interesting!"

"Yeah," I agreed, teasingly for geeks it is,"

Before Fire could think of a reply, our Biology teacher, Miss Cosp, stormed through the door. For those of you who don't know this, Miss Cosp does not know how to walk. She can run, she can stomp, and best of all she can storm, but she can not walk.

"Today we are going to be learning about cells, animal and plants cells in particular," Miss Cosp snapped.

Every one groaned. Cells were Miss Cosp's favourite subject, she never tired of getting us to cut up onions and look at them under a microscope.

"Well," Miss Cosp glared at us, "Get started. Split into threes, get your equipment, and GET STARTED" she screeched.

We hurried to the back of the class, grabbed a microscope, an onion, a knife and a whole tonne of other stuff and got to work.

Half an hour later, the bell rang and Fire and I headed to the door. Jam had been asked, yet again, to stay behind for a few minutes because he had 'cheeked' the teacher once again. Miss Cosp had nearly had a heart attack when he talked back to her, but I didn't see why, he was always doing it.

Jam caught up to us on the way home.

"Hey, wait up!" He yelled at us from down the street.

"Hurry up then!" I yelled back, "Its pizza tonight!"

I guess I should explain. Fourteen years ago my mother died giving birth to me, and my dad, still grieving from his loss, gave me up to a care-home. I don't remember my dad at all, so I don't miss him. I live in an orphanage, in a town outside London, with Jam and Fire and lots of other Kids.

Fire and Jam's story is more depressing, their dad left their mum when he found out she was pregnant, and neither of them ever tried to contact him. Their mum got depressed and started drinking heavily. By the time the two of them were four, the family had no money and the house was on the verge of being repossessed, Jam and Fire were missing school to work around the house. A social worker came round to see why their mum hadn't enrolled them in school, and an hour later, Jam and Fire were driven off to a care-home. They moved here when they were six and we've been firm friends since. Another thing you should know is that, no, their mum wasn't so depressed she called them really weird names, no one knows their names but them and they insist on being called Jam and Fire. Once, some social workers tried calling them different names, but they just got ignored and eventually gave up.

We sprinted full out all the way back to the orphanage and arrived ten minutes early. Aston, our care-worker was already home. Aston is really cool, he's around thirty six, and grew up in a care-home, so he knows what it's like. Sandra, the head care-worker is sixty-five and can't understand our need for electrical stuff. Every time some one complained that we didn't have even a TV or DVD player, she would start off about how when she was a little girl, the TV didn't exist and so on, and Jam would turn round and say very solemnly that she must have lived a deprived life. Bessie, the social worker that visits is nice, but very boring. She hates going outside, because she might get dirty, and she absolutely despises the cold, wet and snowy, all the stuff we like.

Aston spotted us coming in through the hallway and asked us if we could set the table.

"Sure, it'll only take a minute," I said, before Jam could start complaining.

In actual fact, it took us seven minutes to set out the knives and forks for everyone, just enough time for Aston to call for several extra large pizzas!

"c'mon," I told Fire and Jam once we had changed into our normal clothes- me into a bright, neon orange t-shirt that said "_I am cooler than you because my socks are green!"_ a pair of denim three-quarter shorts, sandals and, of course, green socks, Jam, a _Gap_hoodie and ripped jeans, and Fire, a spaghetti strap top and green skirt- "Lets nab the best seats in the dinning room."

Ashley came in a few minutes later, glaring at us for daring to take her usual seats, Gabby and Danielle following her in like puppies. Ashley is a fifteen year old pain in the back. Literally. She has long, blonde hair, and hazel eyes, and never wears anything unless it's got a designer label somewhere on it. She doesn't even have to wear school uniform, though I have no clue how she managed that, and if I did, I would have tried it immediately; our uniforms are a hideous yellow colour. Ashley arrived here a few months ago, just before the summer holidays, because her parents had been deemed unable to look after her or something- but I didn't see how; Ashley had almost everything she wanted with her.

Although slightly less stuck up, younger (only thirteen) and less annoying, Gabby and Danielle are like miniature versions of her, and agree with everything Ashley says or does.

"How did you get home so early?" Ashley snarled at us, "Was it because you failed out of school so they sent you home like little kids?"

"No we did so well in today's lessons that we got _Student of the Year Award_!" I lied coldly.

Ashley snorted delicately, "Yeah, right, there's no such thing as _Student of the Year Award_, and even if there was, it would go to me, not some pitiful losers like you!"

That was probably true, Jam never bothered with school work and answered back to all of the teachers, and me? Well, let's just say I have a tad more respect for teachers, and, although I do spend a lot of time messing around with Jam, my grades have been average. It was only Fire that would be in with a chance of getting an award for anything other than worlds worst student, and with the fantastic, artsy fartsy Ashley prancing around, even her chances were slim.

"Oh well," Jam sighed, "There's always the _Most Obviously Made up Pop Quiz Answer Ever_!"

I grinned, that was our insider joke whenever some one started boasting about awards and prizes.

"What was your answer this time?" I asked Jam.

"Well Mr. Spleen- sorry, Spleed," Jam corrected himself when he saw his sisters glare, "Asked me to name five states in America, and I told him I could recite all sixty three of them, Japan, China, Asia, Africa, Anne Berlin-"

"Anne Berlin!" Shrieked Fire, "That's not a state! It's a person!"

"And?" Jam asked as I cracked up laughing: Jam and Fire's fights are so much funnier than the average sibling squabbles. "Katrina is a name, as well as a hurricane!"

"See?" Ashley sniffed, "He probably doesn't know what three other countries make up the United Kingdom!"

We all glared at her.

"Ashley," I said in the patronizing voice that everyone hates, "Jam may not know that, but he, and everyone else, knows that you're a jealous b*tch that has no friends whatsoever."

She shut up and sulked after that. While everyone came back, I sat down and relaxed.

The dining room is cool; it's got a whole wall of floor to ceiling windows and a set of glass doors leading out to the garden, which had a football net and a random tennis bat and ball in it. There are six tables in the dinning room, and usually five people on each. Three of the tables have benches for seats, and the other 'better' tables had cushioned chairs. The little kids came in then; Annie who is five years old, Jess who is six, Charlie, five and Kris, seven.

Kris and Charlie went immediately over to the window, shouting "Footie, lets play footie!" like they always do when they get home.

Annie and Jess sat down in the corner of the room on one of the benches and pulled out a doll each from their pockets. I spotted Ashley coming back into the room with some non-school related clothes on. On the table next to us, Todd, Frannie and Norbert were playing with some toy cars, like all nine year olds nowadays. Aston must have bought them some new ones from the pound shop, because I'd never seen the cars before.

Quite a few of the older kids hadn't got home from school yet, because they stayed behind to do a club of some sort, but by the time the pizza had arrived, the room was full.


	3. Chapter 2

2nd Chapter coming up!

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Half an hour later, I fell on to my bed upstairs.

"Oh God! I am sooo full," I moaned at Fire, who staggered over to her own bed.

"Tell me about it," She groaned.

I pulled myself up into a sitting position and glanced at my 'bedroom'.

I share my room with Fire and Marya, another fourteen year old here. Our three beds are lined up next to each other, only mine, the middle one, is turned the other way round, so whilst Fire and Marya's heads were nearest the wall, _my _head was somewhere near the middle of the room. Apart from the beds, there were three wardrobes propped up against the wall, and a box at the end of each bed, for us to keep our belongings in. There was also a shelf above each of our beds. The big velux window above our heads was open and a nice afternoon breeze was coming in through it.

Our room was on the top floor with four other girls' rooms both sides, all of the girls shared a floor, and the boys shared the floor below. No boys were allowed in the girls' rooms after seven, and vice versa. I decided I was incredibly bored. Right now, there was nothing to do, I could read a book, but I felt too hyped up to do that, I could listen to music on my £5 stereo I'd bought from Woolworths, just before it had shut down, but the only CD's I had were ancient: The Scissor Sisters: The Beetles, you get the idea.

Fire sighed from across the room and dragged her school bag over to the bed. I groaned internally and hoisted my bag onto the bed.

It _soooo_ wasn't fair that we got so much homework, I mean, it's what, I checked the calendar I'd pinned up on the wall above my head, a week from the Christmas holidays, and they were acting as if we were still getting ready for the end of term assessments, which I know I've failed (again totally unfair, all the teachers give me bad grades 'cos they hate me and think I don't try, when really, their lessons are just _way_ too boring). And don't you dare tell me life isn't fair! Whoever made that up should be awarded for making up the world's most annoying statement ever! I mean come on, just when you want to have a good old moan about all the bad things in your life, some one turns around and tells you "Life isn't fair, Erin, you just got to make the most of it" well whoop de do to them! Personally, I'd feel like slapping them.

Anyway, back to the dreaded, boring, sucks-the-joy-out-of-you, homework. Today I had a maths paper to try to finish off and a page essay on _Gorillas_, of all things, to write. Lucky me.

There was a knock on the door, I looked at my alarm clock, which I had chucked under my bed this morning when the alarm had gone off, half six. I blinked; I'd spent a whole ten minutes complaining to myself.

I figured it was probably Jam at the door, since Marya never knocks, and all of the other girls wouldn't do either.

"Come in," I yelled at the door.

Well, what do you know, the door opened and Jam came in. Big surprise.

"Hey," He said, "Homework's giving me a head ache just looking at it," He grinned at me "Figured you'd be the same, we could go outside and play some football, and afterwards we could do the homework together, you know, rather than having to endure it for twice as long, with no moral support."

I grinned back. Jam's really cool, he's one of those guys who act really immature, but also have a soft side to them and are really considerate. Having said that, there is nothing romantical going on between me and Jam, be assured, we're just mates. End of.

"I'm practically dead, school-itus is a really horrible disease, but Fire seems completely unaffected by the geeky atmosphere around her, maybe it's because she's so geeky herself," I said loudly in a teasing voice.

Fire looked up from her homework, finally, and saw me and Jam staring at her, in mock exasperation.

"What?" She asked.

I decided not to go back over our conversation; Fire would probably have a fit if she heard us dissing school. Apparently Jam had had the same idea, "Erin and I are going out to play some football in the garden, want to come,"

Fire, for some reason looked confused, "But what about our work?"

Oh. That explains it.

"We'll do it when we get back in." I said, somewhat regretfully. I had real hopes of not getting it done at all, but then I'd get in trouble.

Yep, that's me, Erin the not-quite0out-of-the-box-type-person

"Oh. OK" Fire agreed.

Since we were playing odd, we got some of the others to join in, so it ended up with a five-a-side game of footie; England, Me, Arron, Frannie, Todd and Norbert, against Germany, Jam, Fire, Ernie, Yvonne and Catie. Aston was referee.

My team was decent, I was great at playing football, especially striker, Arron, who was fifteen, was tall, lanky and intimidating was also playing striker, Frannie was midfielder and Norbert and Todd were our defenders. We were playing without goalies.

Jam's team, not being too bias (whatever that means, I just heard my History teacher talking about bias writing) or anything, were terrible. Jam was as good as me, and he could play defence or striker brilliantly, but he chose defence, so, naturally, we tackled each other whenever we got the chance, but the rest of the team were simply horrific. Fire was never sporty, and watching her try to kick the football in the right direction was _painful. _Yvonne was OK, I suppose, although playing striker wasn't really for her. Catie could at least kick the ball, but it usually went in the wrong direction. Ernie was the worst though, every time someone kicked the ball to him, he would squeal and jump out of the way. If you even glared at him he would give up the ball and run off like a demented squirrel was chasing him- believe me, it has happened before.

In the end, England, ie. My team, completely slaughtered Germany- Jam's team- ten, nil. I checked the clock on the way in. Eight o'clock. Looks like we'd have to do our homework downstairs, if we were going to get it done. I nudged Jam. "We're gonna have to do homework down here. Seven o'clock deadline."

Jam nodded, "Meet you in here in ten minutes."

When I got upstairs, I changed out of my muddy clothes and got into my pyjamas. They aren't really pyjamas, they are actually just an old strappy top and cotton short shorts that I like and feel comfortable in. I ran a brush through my hair, looking in the mirror that's on the inside of my wardrobe. My curly mass of brown hair reached just past my shoulders, framing my pale, white face and causing my vivid green eyes to stand out like an elephant in a swimming pool. That was random.

I turned to Fire, who was climbing into bed, "Aren't you coming downstairs to do your home work?"

She looked at me, surprised, "I've already done it,"

"Great," I mumbled, there goes our escape from working hard to complete our homework.

Jam was already downstairs when I arrived, he, to had changed into his pyjamas, a short-sleeved top and three quarter khaki trousers.

"Hey," I said as I came in, "Fire isn't coming; she's done with her homework,"

"Translation, no one's gonna do our homework for us," Jam smiled at me. "We got our work cut out if we want to finish before morning,"

"OK, let's get started," I said in a cheerfully fake voice.


	4. Chapter 3

Ok, this chapter is basically just introducing Dylan. Hope u enjoy it & plz review!

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Dylan

I guess my new life isn't so bad, so far, I thought, as I looked around the room. When my foster parents gave me up to the people here, for no reason at all, it had hurt pretty bad, I mean, what had I done to make them do that? I had stuck to their rules; no mud in the house, take your shoes off at the door, call them mum and dad- rather than Amelia and Carl- wash up your plate after you've used it and no smoking, drinking or taking drugs in the house. I frowned at the last rule. It totally didn't make sense, since I've never touched a fag in my life, and the one time I'd had alcohol, I'd puked for a whole day afterwards, literally. And then, where in the world was I going to get drugs from? I can't exactly go up to the local off-licence and demand a whole tonne of Cannabis or whatever, I'm only fourteen…

Ok, this has gone wrong already, just ignore the whole thing about the drugs and the alcohol and stuff, OK? Anyway, where was I? Right, right, my foster parents. Well, I'd stuck to all of their rules, and gotten good grades in school, been on the boys football team, won a few awards here and there, then the day before yesterday, Amelia, my foster-mum turned round when I got in from playing rugby with my mates in the park, and said, "Now, Dylan, I don't want you to get upset, but me and Carl have made a choice, and we have decided that it's for the best,"

You know when an adult says that, just before they drop a bombshell on you, and completely ruin your life so far? Yup, be patient, that's the next part.

"We don't think you should live with us anymore, Dylan, I mean, your getting older, and we're maybe just not the right parents for you anymore,"

I'd had Carl and Amelia for parents ever since I was six, so they were going to be as close to the right parents for me as I would ever get. It was weird though, the fact that they'd fostered me all this time, but not ever thought of adopting me. Too much finality, I guess; doomed forever to look after your adopted child.

"So," Amelia had continued, "We've decided to stop fostering you,"

My first thought; she's _finally_ got to the point. My second? Oh god, I'm doomed! And my third? I'll be honest with you; my brain froze after those two thoughts.

"But where am I going to go?" I'd asked in despair, I couldn't just go back to the orphanage I'd come from. I'd be a laughing stock. Fostered for eight whole years, then sent back there for no reason, it'd be the orphanage gossip until I left, four years later, I'd never get over it! OK, that was slightly over the top, but a guy's gotta have some street cred!

Then Amelia had smiled, and said, "Well, some very nice people have offered to take you in, and save all the paperwork and stuff,"

And the man had walked through the door, and, quite literally into the middle of my life. He was roughly six feet tall and had a large black cloak on, that covered everything but his face. I've seen lots of freaky things before, but none of them were by half, as freaky as the man's face. The whole way down his face was a massive scar, it looked old, but it was a very prominent part of his features. His nose was practically the exact twin of a squished tomato because it had clearly broken quite recently. His eyes freaked me out; they gazed at me as if seeing through me and into my mind and soul- which I would later find that was a rather accurate description of what he was actually doing- and his lips were pressed together, unsmilingly.

Such a nice father-figure to have!

"Um… mum," I'd said to Amelia, "This man looks like a eff-ing terrorist. And I'm not sure handing me over to a random guy I don't know, without doing any proper paper work is legal,"

Amelia had just dazed off into the distance, her eyes glazed over, just like Carl.

I'd walked up to them, snapping my fingers in front of their faces, shaking them, yelling at them, before turning toward the man in the doorway. I'd known he had had something to do with the way my foster-parents were acting, but I hadn't been able to figure out what he was doing. I still haven't figured that out.

Well, anyway, I'd turned around and snapped at the man, and asked him what he had done to my foster parents. And I can still remember his reply now (which is pretty good, because I usually can't even remember my phone number)

"Ex foster parents, Dylan, ex foster parents, I'm your foster farther now," And then, he'd told me to go upstairs and pack my stuff up, because he wanted to get going. I hadn't wanted to, but his face had scared me so much that I hadn't dared to argue with him.

When I'd come back downstairs, ten minutes later, with two bags full of clothes and books and toys, having cleared out practically my whole room, my foster parents were fine again.

They said good bye to me, and hugged me and waved me off as I'd gotten into the car with the weird man whose name I had no clue of. I waved back at them too, and managed not to cry or do anything soppy, as the man had driven me off. When we'd reached the end of the street, I'd allowed myself one glance back at the house and the people that I'd vowed to always call my parents, no matter who took their place. I knew deep inside of me, that I would never see that house again, nor the people living there, that for so long, had been my parents.


	5. Chapter 4

Ok! here's chapter 4! I'd lyk 2 say a big thank you to the lone canine, for his awesome comments! XD

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We sat on the widow seat in the 'playroom' tucked out of sight so no one could see us and tell us we should be in bed, blah blah blah.

We started off on the maths paper, mostly making up the answers, but occasionally- at the end of every page- stopping to work one out, so it didn't look like we hadn't done it, at all. We also did the _Show your working out below the arrow_ stuff too. It would just look weird if the question was something like;_ Simplify X-3+4=Y+X-6 _and we'd written something like 4=96-300+180 or whatever, although, Jam thought it wasn't necessary, and reminded me that we'd made up different answers so it wouldn't look like we had copied or anything.

Just finishing the paper took us up until quarter to ten. I sighed and stared at the info we'd been given for our Gorilla Essay.

"OK, screw this!" Jam whispered to me, "Write a whole tonne of made up junk, and then we swap and make up something for each other, and remember, we want to get the other told off."

"Yeah," I grinned at the thought of Jam actually letting me sabotage his work. "Only, it's more lightly that we'll get a detention for doing this…"

Which was probably true.

"Don't think about that," Jam paused for a moment, and then added, "Imagine my sister's face when she sees these," He chuckled, "Priceless…"

That somehow made me think that he had done this before, still, it was the one thing that convinced me.

"This is gonna be hilarious." I muttered to myself.

I stared down at my piece of paper, then wrote,

The Gorilla is a descendent of the African Elephant. Its furry animal skin means that a banana will not see it when it tries to sneak up on it. The Gorilla is the Banana's natural predator. A Gorilla's fingers and toes mark how many battles it has been in, and the most fingers and toes award goes to Anjay the Gorilla. Anjay has fifty six fingers, and ninety seven toes, what a brave Gorilla! The Gorilla's time line is linked with ours through out history, when we had the first world war, the Gorilla's were there, fighting on Brittan's side, during the second world war, once again, the Gorilla's came to our aid, stealing all the Russian's food, and throwing banana's in the face of Hitler. We owe our freedom, to the Gorilla's, may they always be there for us.

I spent a moment admiring my handy work then looked at Jam's over his shoulders, and whispered in his ear, "Are you writing a novel or something, Jam, hurry up."

"Nearly finished," Jam muttered, he scribbled one last sentence, then said, "There. Done,"

We swapped. I leaned into the paper, trying to read; it had gotten dark quite suddenly, and it was always hard to read Jam's writing.

"Here," Jam said, then clicked on his torch, the light wasn't much better, but it was enough that I could read what Jam had put.

"Holy Crap," I muttered in amazement. "Do you want to get killed, Jam, 'cos Mr. Spleed is gonna kill you, seriously,"

Oh, in case I forgot to mention, Mr Spleed (or Mr. Spleen as everyone calls him behind his back) is our majorly stroppy English teacher. Like Miss Cosp, he has yet to learn how to walk like a sane person should. Not that he can really be accounted for as sane. Mr Spleed storms around, shouting at everyone, practically all the teachers are scared of him, but the only people he doesn't scare are the pupils, or rather, he usually scares them, but before the end of the lesson, they've cracked up laughing at him, and couldn't care less that he's terrifying. Jam must have a seriously strong death wish if he was handing in the piece of paper.

"I can't wait to see him try," Was the only reply I got out of him.

I sighed and looked back over it;

Gorilla's have very keen senses that allow them to here even the slightest whisper in a classroom. Most Gorillas' are perfectly civilised, but occasionally, there is an insane one. The insane Gorilla's tend to have long noses, with spectacles perched on the end of them. They have eyes so narrow they can hardly see, and run around on two feet wearing suits. These Gorilla's never talk quietly, they prefer to scream and shout at people. Almost always the Gorilla's are bald. A Chinese zoo expert, named zoodalc Cheng-chong, states, there is only one known insane Gorilla in England, but we have yet to capture it. This Gorilla goes by the name, MR. Spleed, if anyone knows info on his whereabouts, please contact us now.

I sighed again, Jam would kill me if I tried re-writing any of this, his mind was set on causing trouble, so I may as well keep it up, and of he wrote anything of this on mine, I'd kill him and make a mental note to re-write it later. I started writing,

Zoodalc Cheng-Chong also stated that he suspected another insane Gorilla, which they are naming Mr Spleedio, is near to Mr Spleed, and says that the first place any insane Gorilla would go to is a school, Cheng-Chong urges anyone who feels intimidated by a strange teacher that storms around screaming at people, is bald and has a long nose with glasses perched on the end of them to come forward and say so. He has given forth his contact number, which is listed below, . Thank you for taking the time to read my essay Mr. Spleed, I hope you enjoyed it, as you had a very big part in it. I would also like to say that all of this is completely true, if Mr. Spleed claims he is not an insane Gorilla, then he is lying. Thanks once again, Jam

I put down my pen and reread the whole thing. Perfect. Now I just had to write a speech for his funeral.

"Give me mine," I told Jam once he had finished, "We'll read over them and change the things that we want to."

It was Ok. I wasn't going to have to kill Jam myself. He had basically gone with my history of the African-Elephant-descended-Gorillas.

The Gorillas have had a lot of help from us too, they struggled against racism that lemurs and racoons encouraged. When Gorillas had their own world war (the sixth in a hundred years) we were there to help. After several generations, the gorillas lost, but we helped them win the next three wars, and eventually made the dodo extinct because they sided with the spider monkeys in the gorillas' world war fifty six or the nineteenth world war in a hundred years. Gorillas made us what we are to day. If Albert Gorillastien hadn't been so clever, we still wouldn't know what a giraffe was. If Isaac Gorilla Newton, a descendent of the chief gorilla hadn't figured out what the saying "That'll happen when pigs fly" and bought us out of the dark and into the twenty first century, then we would have been stuck in an age of stupidness. I'd like to thank the Gorilla chief of the rainforest for helping me with this project and want to add that if you ever see a lonely gorilla, go up and give him a hug!

I looked over at Jam "This is brilliant, we should do this more often,"

Jam grinned, "'Zoodalc Cheng-chong also stated that he suspected another insane Gorilla, which they are naming Mr. Spleedio…! Fantastic, Erin fantastic!" He doubled up in silent laughter.

We sat down reading through our essays, quoting funny bits, and 'checking' our maths papers.

When I next looked at the clock, I squealed silently, Jam looked at me curiously. I guess it's not every day you see one of your best friends squeaking like an idiot, yet remaining completely silent, a feat I'd all but mastered.

"What?" Jam demanded.

"It's eleven o'clock. If anyone catches us, we're dead."

I probably sounded like a rule abiding geek. The truth is, deep down inside of me, a very, incredibly small part is. Plus the fact that if anyone saw Jam and me sneaking around in the dead of the night, they would immediately assume the worst (and totally not true-est); that Jam and me were sneaking back in after a date, and that would be A) so not cool, B)the orphanage gossip for the next four years, when we became legal adults and could leave this dump in the dust, and C)so embarrassing if Fire thought I actually liked Jam in that way. Which, as I have made clear before, is so not true.

Jam knew immediately what I was thinking. "I'll go out and check, if I don't come back, I've been spotted, or I've got upstairs. If I'm spotted I'll make some noise to warn you, and wait for five minutes until you go upstairs. If I'm not, I won't make a noise, but still wait five minutes, incase someone sees one of us,"

So typical of Jam to do the heroics and leave me to do the boring stuff, oh well, it was his butt he was risking. Jam set off stealthily but silently, leaving me left behind to stare at the clock. The five minutes seemed to take ages, but I didn't hear anything apart from the tick of the clock, so /jam must have made it all right.

Finally, the big hand moved forward again, and touched the 1 on the clock. Five past eleven, time to go. I crept forward carefully, and made it to the stop of the stairs that was the boys landing, before trouble found me.

From above me, a loud creek from a less sneaky person let me know that someone was awake upstairs. I backed up immediately, heading quickly downstairs, avoiding the groaning step at the bottom, just in time, before a torch light flickered to life and shone down the stairs, almost right where I had been moments ago. 'Please let the person just think they heard a weird noise or something,' I prayed silently, as the torch switched off. 'Please let them turn around and go back to bed, please,'

No such luck. Another step creaked, from further down the staircase, closer to me. I inched back, barely trying to breathe, until I hit the wall. I felt that I had aged several centuries, before an extremely loud creak and a whispered swear word informed me that, whoever it was, had arrived at the bottom.

"Sh*t!" I paused for a second, trying to figure out who it was. When I did I nearly laughed, someone had lost their confidence very quick. It was Ashley, I hadn't recognised her voice straight away, because, A) she was whispering, B) she _never _swore and C) I'd never heard Ashley sound unconfident before.

I was sorely tempted to jump out in front of her and give her a scare, but some thing told me Ashley was up to serious no good. If that sentence makes any sense at all, which it probably doesn't. Anyway, I'm _way_ too curious for my own good. I imagined telling Sandra in the morning that Ashley had been out at past eleven, how Ashley would stare at me in shock and I would smirk at her and tell her to eff off. Then my logic side smashed the daydream by pointing out that if I said anything about Ashley being out of bed at this hour, it would have given away the fact that I'd been breaking the rules too.

In the few seconds it had taken me to think/imagine this, Ashley hade made it to the door. I frowned, why was Ashley going outside at this time of night. Something was definitely up. And then, I did what could have either been the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life or the cleverest thing I've ever done; I decided to follow Ashley.

As she slipped out into the night, I raced forward and grabbed my coat, it was the middle of December, and I don't know about you, but spending Christmas as an ice cube would suck majorly. I shoved my feet into a pair of old snow boots, abandoned in the corner of the room, then raced around to the back of the house and into thee dinning room, I had no clue how Ashley was planning to get back inside, but I wasn't about to get locked out. I grabbed the door handle for the glass door and yanked it open, snagging the keys on the way out and shutting the door firmly behind me.

It was pitch black, and I could barely see a metre ahead of me, but I sprinted silently around the outside, just in time to see Ashley torchlight disappear out of the drive way, I raced after her, following the light of the torch.

Thank God she's not going far away, I thought, if she was getting a bus, there would be no way I could just hop on with her. I didn't even have any money with me!

I followed her half a mile down the road, and into an old, clearly unused park. Weird, was Ashley some drug addict, who hung out with other drug addicts in a park. Just weird.

Then I heard someone else coming up behind me and, without hesitating, jumped the fence and darted behind a big bush. Whoever Ashley was meeting, clearly wasn't a friendly old man. I mean, come on, who meets up with you in a creepy old park in the middle of the night with no one in sight? If Ashley was meeting up with a boyfriend, she would do it in daylight and in the public. Popularity was her strong point, being nice, kind and sharing? Not so much.

Any way, as I suspected, the man who had come up behind me turned in to the park and went straight up to Ashley, who was standing right next to the bush I was hiding in. Ashley looked terrified in the torch light, and, for once, I didn't blame her; the man in front of her was around six feet tall, a dark cloak was wrapped around him, so only his face was showing. His face was the really scary part. All the way down the right side of his face, there was a scar, it must have been years old, but it stuck out like a spot on your chin. His nose was crushed up and obviously broken, like he'd gotten into a fight in a pub some where, a few hours ago. The torch light didn't come up to his eyes, but it didn't take a lot of imagination to see what could have been there; dark pits of fire, piercing through every part of you, like he was reading your every thought. The man's lips were pressed together in a tight line.

"Why di' you call me, Ranmond? I thought I made it clear the las' time we met, if they're no' powerful, I don' want 'em," The man said.

His voice was horrible, and I mean horrible like a-thousand-nails-scrapping-down-a-black-board horrible, all dry and growly, like a wolf or something. But it wasn't what his voice sounded like that was occupying my thoughts; it was what he had said.

It sounded like he knew her, but, from the way he talked to her, the whole "Why did you call me" and "I thought I'd made it clear last time we met," it sounded like he didn't like her, which shows he has brains. But why did he call Ashley Ranmond? It couldn't be her surname, because that was Drinmam. And why would anybody say that they didn't want something unless it was powerful. Maybe he was a battery collector that only collected non-rechargeable batteries? Somehow, I doubted it. I started to think I'd gotten more than I'd bargained for when I'd left the orphanage thinking of how I could get Ashley in trouble.

Ashley, or Ranmond or whatever, liked her lips. "Oh but they are, master, and better yet, there are three of them," She told him.

WTH? Master? Maybe she had gone crazy or something. Not that I cared for her sanity, it was mine I was worried about. Was I going mad or something? Maybe Ashley had joined some loony cult. That would explain the whole 'master' thing. But the words seemed to mean more to the man than they did to me.

"Three, you say? Powerful? How much? And are you _sure_ you weren't followed?" The man demanded.

OK, I'm sick of saying 'the man' so I'll call him 'the weirdo in a black cloak', or maybe just 'scar dude', for short. Ashley was practically trembling with fear and, if the situation hadn't been serious- and I hadn't been hiding in a bush thirty centimetres away- I would have laughed at her. I made a mental note to do so later.

"I wasn't followed, master and as for how powerful they are, I would have thought you could have sensed it through me. I have been with them a while now," Was Ashley's reply. Sense it through her? Again, WTH? This definitely wasn't a battery saleswoman and freak battery collector.

"Hmm…aye," Scar dude muttered, "You're right, I can sense 'em now. Aye," He sniffed the air deeply, "I can see tha' I was wrong to assume tha' you had only pitiful weaklings to offer, bu' if we catch these, you will be highly rewarded, these are the most powerful I 'ave sensed fo' centuries, you 'ave done well" Whoa. Weirdness overload.

Ashley was practically fainting when The Scar Dude told her she would be highly rewarded.

"Th-Thank you, master," She stuttered, bowing deeply, "Thank you so much, I promise I will not let you down!"

"Enough talk!" The Weirdo in a Black Coat said as soon as she had finished, "I presume you 'ave a photo o' each o' 'em?"

He held out a hand, expectantly, as Ashley fluttered around her purse for the pictures. She trembled so much when she took them out, that she dropped one of the photos on the floor, inches from me, I leaned in curiously as she bent down to pick the photo up. The photo had been visible for only a second, but what I saw froze me, and turned my insides to mush. The photo was of me and Fire, last year, when it had been her and Jam's birthday party, we were smiling at the camera, leaning right up close, so you could only see Jam's hair in the background.

* * *

Ooh! cliffhanger (probably wasn't that good, but still!


	6. Chapter 5

Thanks again to the lone canine and also to tinkamunk for commenting!

this is the next part of the story about Dylan

* * *

We had driven for about five hours, so it had been about ten o'clock before I finally fell asleep in a hotel room, somewhere near London. When I'd woken up in the morning, there had been one of those little boxes of cereal and a sachet of milk on the table next to me, but no man anywhere in sight.

I'd picked around with my breakfast for a while, feeling starving, but not managing to get anything down my throat, until eventually, I'd taken the bowl over to the window, and chucked its contents out of it.

An hour later, the man had arrived, and we'd gone out of the hotel and started driving again. When we had finally arrived here, some place off the south coast, I'd been hot and bothered and really just wanted to curl up into a ball and get away from it all. I still feel like doing that now, just for different reasons.

The man had gotten somebody to show me to my room (a private one, too, I didn't have to share it with anyone, though there must have been hundreds of people living here).

Yesterday, I'd learnt a lot about myself, and, in truth, I was still trying to process it all. I can still remember every detail of my first lesson, with Tie-Cho, our 'teacher' here (and, like I've said before, that is really good, for me!). Tie-Cho was a short stubby man, with a goatee beard, and long shoulder-length hair. When he spoke, he always said Tie-Cho rather than I. It was pretty weird.

"Now, Dylan, do you know why you are here?" He'd asked me.

"No," I'd answered truthfully, because I'd hoped that Tie-Cho was going to give me an answer.

Instead, Tie-Cho had cursed and muttered, "They always leave Tie-Cho to do the explaining! Do you think Tie-Cho wants to console every stinking kid who starts wailing about how they shouldn't be here, and that they're not any different to normal people! Tie-Cho is going to ask for a pay rise if Tie-Cho has to keep doing this!"

I'd stared at him completely bewildered, "Normal people, sir?" I'd decided to be polite; I hadn't wanted to get on anyone's bad side on my first day.

"Yes! You've got it!" He had exclaimed in relief.

"Got what, sir?" I'd asked, even more confused than before.

"Or not…" Tie-Cho's shoulders had sagged back down to his usual position. "Look, boy," He'd said to me, "You are different from normal people because you are not normal; you have powerful blood running through your veins. You are a Zyton!"

"A Zyton?" I'd asked, "What's that,"

Tie-Cho had groaned, "How come no one knows what it means! Every time Tie-Cho says that! Argh!"

Ok, admittedly, I did get sort of angry with him, how come no one knows what a Zyton means? Maybe, um… because the word didn't exist? I'd turned on him,

"Are you playing some practical joke on me?'Cos it really isn't funny!"

Tie-Cho had glowered at me so fiercely, that, if he had had lasers for eyes, he would have melted me into a thousand tiny pieces.

"Tie-Cho does not joke,"

Ok, I'd thought, Either, I'm going crazy, that guys going crazy, or what he's saying is actually true. And then I'd decided on the second one, mainly because it was the easiest to accept.

"Boy." Tie-Cho had snapped at me, "A Zyton is a human who has a power."

"A… power? Sir?" I'd decided to go back to being polite.

"Yes!" Tie-Cho had yelped. "A power. You will be able to use that power, once trained, and use it to help us- Tie-Cho means- the world!" I'd stared at him, I had been pretty sure that he hadn't meant the 'us' part to slip out.

"OK… "I'd gone along with it, after all, I'd reasoned, it wouldn't hurt, just trying to believe in something for once. Unless this was some whako practical joke.

"Zyton's are powerful people, but the government do not approve of us," Tie-Cho had told me then. "They will do anything to stop us getting more power. They have even employed some Zyton's to track us down and destroy us! Hypocrites!"

"Destroy us?" I'd asked in alarm, "But why? What have we done?"

"We haven't done anything, but incase you weren't listening, they don't approve of us, and think we're bad, and that we want to take over, because we're more powerful, as if!" Tie-Cho had said, in a way that suggested that was _exactly_ what they wanted to do.

"So, what are we supposed to do about it?" I'd asked.

"Tie-Cho will train you hard, and we will show the government what we can do-Tie-Cho means- we will show the government that we may be powerful, but we don't want to take over the world!" Again with the tone, I'd thought, Tie-Cho gives way too much away.

"Um… OK," I'd said again, trying to remain neutral.

As soon as Tie-Cho had realised I'd accepted his story, he'd told me, rather abruptly, that our first lesson was over, and that he would see me back here tomorrow. I'd blinked and asked, "Finished? Already? How come?" But he'd been halfway across the yard outside by then.


	7. Chapter 6

Erin's POV

* * *

As soon as Ashley had handed the photos to him, she nodded at him and walked off quickly. The Scar Dude stared at the pictures for a few minutes, and I studied his face, it hadn't changed expression throughout the whole of the meeting, his lips still pressed into a thin line, his eye brows in a permanent from. Then Scar Dude got out a phone from a pocket inside his cloak. He pressed a few buttons, then held it up to his ear. He was so close to me now that I could here the dialling tone coming from it. After five rings, the other side picked up,

"Well?" The voice on the other side demanded.

The scar Dude answered with a voice rather more hopeful than his expression, "They're genuine, they're powerful, an' 'ccording to Ranmond, they 'ave no clue who they ar', either," I knew who I was! Why, and did Ashley say that we didn't know who we were; I hadn't heard her say anything _like_ that.

"So?" The voice asked.

"So we need to get 'em before Lockhore gets 'em," The Weirdo in a Black Cloak snapped. 'Who is Lockhore? Why do we need to be captured? None of this is making any sense!' I yelled in my head

"Why?" The voice asked in the same dumbfounded voice.

"Are you thick, 'cause if 'e does, 'e'll train 'em up good an' proper so they'll know tha' we're the bad 'uns bu' if we get 'em we can turn 'em against Lockhore an' the others an' use 'em to get complete power, you moron!" Scar dude hissed into the phone. The bad 'uns? Well, I didn't want to be used to make some one all powerful. Especially not make the 'bad 'uns' powerful.

"Oh," The voice said.

"Yeah, oh. Look, jus' get me a set of us up 'ere quick, an' I'll deal with it alrigh'" The Weirdo in a Black Cloak said. 'Deal with it!' I didn't like the sound of that!

"Yeah, I guess," The voice sounded very small

"An' how long is this gonna take?" Scar Dude demanded.

"Around three days boss, maybe two," The voice answered with renewed vigour. I had no clue what was happening, but whatever was happening, two or three days was not good. How about two or three years. Or, hey, how about never!

"Gurd, they betta be." Scar Dude spat at the phone, then called off, turned around and stomped out the park.

For a few minutes I just sat staring at the space where the photo had dropped. I finally realised I was shaking violently when the branch next to me ,that I'd been holding onto, whacked me in the face.

I climbed out of my hiding place, Scar Dude and Ashley would have been long gone, and, to complete the moment of horror it started to snow, heavily.

"Great, just great," I muttered to myself, breaking into a brisk jog, 'cause A) if it continued to snow heavily, I would leave clear foot marks all the way back to the orphanage, and then Ashley would know she had been followed, and B) I was freezing.

By the time I had gotten inside, the snow was half way up my calves. I yanked open the glass door, and shut it quickly behind me. I waited a few seconds, to make sure no one else in the house was awake, then began to sake off all the snow out of my boots and coat.

When I had finished and put my stuff away, there was a massive pile of snow on the floor. I frowned at it. That was gonna be tricky to hide.

In the end, it was relatively easy, I grab a bucket and filled it with snow, turned the radiator up to high, and plonked the bucket down in front of it, if doing all that with numb, shaking hands is easy. In the time it took me to mop up the puddle I had left by the door, make myself a cup of hot chocolate, and begin to warm up, the snow had turned to water. I finished off my drink, staking it in the dishwasher, before heaving the heavy bucket over to the sink and pouring out all of the water.

As soon as I'd done that, I decided that I was going to bed. I climbed the stairs slowly, partially because I was tired and shaky with cold and partially because I wasn't sure I would remember to jump all the right stairs, if I went up fast.

As soon as got into my bedroom, I collapsed into bed, pulled my cover over me and fell asleep. The last thing I saw was my alarm clock, in the middle of the room (Marya had probably kicked it there, she does tha when she trips over it) telling me it was two o'clock. Ouch.

When I woke up, some one was shaking me awake.

"Wake up! Wake up! It's snowing!" Fire was yelling at me, like an exited puppy dog.

You may not think so, what with Fire being all geeky, indoor-sy and un-sporty, but Fire _loves_ the snow.

I sat up groggily. "And you woke me up because…?"

"Because there's no school today, and we've got get ready for the snowball fight this afternoon!"

Snow is the one thing that unites us all. Literally. It is the only thing that turns Jam and me geeky, planning strategies for snowball fights, and the one thing that makes Fire glad that school has been cancelled.

I pulled myself up, remembering that I was supposed to have been asleep since nine. I frowned, I was going to have to tell fire and Jam what had happened, but, in all truth, I didn't really want to go through it again. Maybe I could tell them tomorrow. Then I remembered what the man on the phone had said, "Around three days, maybe two,". I sighed; it looked like I would have to tell them today.

"What time is it?" I asked Fire as glanced around the room. Marya was already out; she never spent longer than she needed to here, which makes me think that she dislikes us.

"Nine o'clock, you slept right through the alarm clock. I had to get up and turn it off," I rolled my eyes, such a hardship, "I thought I'd leave you to your beauty sleep while I had breakfast and got dressed, but when I came back, you were _still_ asleep. So I woke you up,"

I guess it wasn't her fault that she had woken me up, but I still felt like turning over and going back to sleep, even after I'd had seven hours of sleep. I groaned at stood up.

"I'm gonna go get breakfast. Meet you in the playroom, so we can get ready, OK?" I asked as I walked to the door.

"OK," Fire grinned.

We always had the same teams when we had snowball fights, no hassle if you wanted to have a quick game, and a lot more time for planning. We always planned out what we were going to do, so that the game could last longer. Our record for the longest snowball fight ever, was three days (we had breaks and stuff, and went to sleep, of course) on the fourth day it rained so much that all the snow melted. It was very sad. Anyway, we take snowball fights _way_ to seriously for our own good.

I met Jam going down the stairs for breakfast.

"See you slept in too," I told him as I caught up with him.

He smiled grimly, "Yup, but if you stay up 'till eleven doing homework, then you should be able to have a rest," Jam paused, then added, "But you look ten times worse than me,"

By this time, we had both grabbed some toast and orange squash and were sitting in the corner.

"Well that's because, I was up much later than that, you see I- tell you later!" I hissed, just as Ashley marched passed.

Jam looked at me like I'd done something really weird, which, in his eyes, I probably had.

"Look," I said, eyeing Ashley, who had sat down the opposite side of the room at her usual space. "All I'm telling you, is that Ashley had a little walk last night, and I followed her,"

Jam stared at me like I'd done something even weirder than before.

"Since when have you ever stalked Ashley?" He asked, incredulously.

"Since last night when she almost caught me sneaking back into bed!" I hissed at him, annoyed now. "Look, I'm trying to tell you something important and your acting stupider than Mr. Bean, or that dude… Johnny English or what ever his name was!"

Jam suppressed a grin. "I know it's important when you compare me to something out of a movie so badly!"

I punched his shoulder, put I wasn't annoyed at him anymore, mostly relieved that he had taken the hints I had given him.

"Right then," I stood up, stuffing my last piece of toast in my mouth, "I'm finished. Meet you in the playroom in ten?"

"See you there," Jam said, standing up as well.

When I came into the playroom, ten minutes later, dressed in my florescent yellow shirt that said _"Just because I'm not wearing my green socks, doesn't mean I'm not cooler than you!" _Just incase you didn't know, I have a set of bright coloured t-shirts that all have words 'green socks' on them somewhere. I was wearing a pair of thick joggers, and snow boots. The playroom was in chaos. Everyone was running round yelling and screaming stuff at each other. I managed to squeeze my way through the crowd of children, over to the other side of the room, where Fire and Jam were sitting.

"Hey," I told them.

"You took your time," Fire tutted.

"Like you needed my help," I said as I examined the sheet of paper in front of me, which had a whole tonne of writing on it (Fire liked writing every single detail) "You're all most finished,"

Fire sighed, "Looks like it, but the radio said that the skies would have cleared up, so we'll be back to school tomorrow, and our snowball fight will be really short. Anyway," She turned an accusing glare at me, "Jam said you were up 'till eleven doing homework, then you decided to follow Ashley out somewhere." She paused only for a second so I could confirm what she had said, then continued scolding me, "That was really irresponsible of you! Running off in the middle of the night, without letting anyone know!"

"Well, I couldn't exactly go up to Sandra and say, 'hey, I feel like following Ashley around outside in the middle of the night! Don't worry, I'll be back before three in the morning!' could I?" I said, defending myself.

"Yeah, Erin does have a point," Jam backed me up.

"Well, it was still irresponsible, whatever you say. And you could at least woken one of us up so we could come with you. We completely missed out!"

I had several answers to that, not all polite, but I decided to go with the easiest. "If I'd woken you up, it would have taken another five minutes, and we would have completely lost Ashley!"

Fire pursed her lips unhappily, but she could see that I was right.

"Well," She said after a few minutes of silence, "Are you going to tell us what happened?"

I glanced around the room. Noisy, yes, but there was too much of a chance some one would overhear me. God. I sound like a paranoid idiot.

"Not here," I told Jam and Fire.

"OK, we can go outside and pretend to be planning our attacks." Suggested Jam.

So we went outside. Without discussing it, we walked over to the corner of the garden and slipped into the space between our fence and the buildings next to us' fence. The two fences pulled apart at just the right place, so they created a little square of space, hidden by bushes, so that no one but us knew the way to get there. We always came here to talk about private stuff.

"OK, tell us now," Fire demanded, once we'd spread out one of the spare coats we'd taken with us, over the ground, so we could sit down.

I repeated everything I had in the park heard last night, leaving the photo 'till last. Fire stared at me in horror, and I could just imagine the lecture she was making up in her mind.

"…Was what he said, and then he hung up, turned around and stomped off. And that's about it," I finished.

Jam looked between me and Fire several times, taking in my ultra-serious-probably-never-seen-before face and Fire's Oh-My-God face, like he had no clue what to think, and, for once, was looking to his sister for help with something other than homework.

"So, do you believe me, or do you think I made the whole thing up?" I asked, though I was pretty sure I didn't want to know the answer.

"I believe you," Fire told me, straight away. Relief swept through me, even if only Fire believed me, it was still better than no one believing me.

Jam was a little more hesitant. "Well, I mean, it is pretty unlikely, that would actually happen… I mean, come on… you really don't expect me to-"

Fire interrupted him, "Yes, we do! Erin, for once in her life, has decided to be serious, and you think she's joking!"

Jam shifted uncomfortably, not looking at either of us. "Well, it's not that I don't think your being serious, but, it is a little far-fetched," He looked at me _finally. _"Are you sure you didn't hit your head, or something, and dream the whole thing?" Ouch. I guess I must have looked upset, but his comment had been quite hurtful. Fire however, just got angrier.

"God. You are so blind sometimes! Just because it sounds weird, doesn't mean it isn't true. Even you know that Erin hasn't got that good imagination," She looked at me, "No offence, or anything,"

"None taken," I assured her.

Jam looked at us one more time, then stood up abruptly. "I need to think this over, OK?"

"OK, just don't tell _anyone,_" I agreed.

"I won't," He said, and walked out of our hiding place.

I sighed. "He doesn't believe me, does he?"

Fire looked at me with grim determination, "I don't think he does, so _we_ need to convince him!"

I sat forward, full of curiosity, "How?"

"It's very easy to slip inside while everyone's out having a snowball fight," She told me, and I just knew that she had done this before. "Leave this to me, all you've gotta do is distract Ashley if she tries going inside,"


	8. Chapter 7

I'd spent the rest of the afternoon in my room thinking over things. If I was really a Zyton, what was I supposed to do? I'd remembered what Tie-Cho had let slip about how, if I was trained, I'd be used to help them. I hadn't been sure weather I'd wanted to help or not.

I don't know now, either, but I guess that's OK, since it's only about ten hours later, but, after seeing so much, I was starting to think I didn't want to, but I wouldn't have a choice, would I? Where could I go where I could get trained properly? And the government would probably try to kill me if I went out of this place.

Anyway, I was waiting inside the building where I'd had my first lesson. I checked my watch again. Tie-Cho was running late. I looked around the corridor. I was sitting in an overly comfortable sofa, in the middle of the corridor, just passed the entrance hall. Every metre or so, there was a painting of some sort, Picasso, or something. I could hear music playing from somewhere, but don't ask me what sort, 'cos I have absolutely no clue. The corridor smelled faintly of disinfectant, and some weird are freshener that someone had sprayed all over the place. Finally, Tie-Cho marched out of the room next to me.

"Come back tomorrow, the same time!" He shouted after the student, who was hurrying down the corridor. "And don't forget to practise tonight!" Then he spotted me, and smiled. "Ah, Dylan, Tie-Cho welcomes you!" I got up off the sofa. "We will be working in a different room today," Tie-Cho told me.

He took me into a room across the corridor to us. The room was covered in cushion-y stuff, all over the ceilings, and the floors and walls, like those cells you see in the movies, where all the insane people go. Tie-Cho sat me down on the floor and said to me, "Now, Dylan, Tie-Cho wants you to empty your mind, think of nothing,"

You know when everyone always says that it's like, literally impossible to do that? I find it amazingly easy… maybe I just don't have a lot to think about, or, maybe, I've just had a lot more practise than most.

Anyway, once I had done that, Tie-Cho told me,

"You must now think of two images. One of these images must be sad, the other must be happy. Bring them to the front of your mind, and concentrate on memorising every detail. Choose wisely, as the more the image affects you, the more the powerful it becomes. The two images you choose now are the ones that you will use forever, so Tie-Cho says again, choose wisely,"

I chose the picture of my foster parents smiling and waving me off, outside their house, when they'd given me up to these people, for the sad image, and a picture of my sixth birthday, when Amelia and Carl had finally said they would foster me, for my happy one.

I focused on them hard, remembering how I'd had cake all over my face when I was six, because we'd had a massive food fight, minutes before Carl and Amelia had arrived. Then I remembered the feeling I'd had, when I'd looked back at my foster parents, waving me off, how I'd known somehow, that I wouldn't see them again.

I felt the top of my spine tingling, and all of the hairs on my arms standing on end. Tie-Cho gasped behind me, but I was concentrating too much to think about why. A warm feeling rushed through me, my whole body felt warm, and I was sure I was vibrating all over. I kept my two images at the front of my mind, like Tie-Cho had told me to, but a third image was trying to make its way to the front too. No, it wasn't an image; it was more like a video of something. A video I've never ever seen before in my life. I watched it come towards me (still inside my head of course), trying to push it back, until it took up the whole of my vision, and I wasn't able to see my images anymore. There was a sickening spinning, all around me, but it stopped, quite suddenly, soon after.

And then, I was inside the image. I could see everything; feel everything as if I were there. Then the picture started moving again.

I was outside, and three teenagers were walking down the street in front of me, the same age as me, one boy, and two girls. All three were wearing some hideous bright yellow uniform. The boy had a mass of straight, fiery red hair, and so did one of the girls, only, hers was longer, blowing around in the wind. The girl in the middle had shoulder length, curly, brown hair, and vivid green eyes that were wide and cautious. In fact, now that I looked closely, all three of them looked hunched up and nervous, but I could barely take my eyes off the brown haired girl in the middle. She was undeniably cute. Even in her school clothes. Even all hunched up and nervous. In fact, that made her look even cuter.

It was dark and cloudy, and it looked as if it was about to snow. I glanced at the red headed girls' watch. 4:45pm, Wednesday the 18th, two days from now. I looked around me, and saw that I was in a park. It was old and disused; obviously, no one had been here for years. Inside the park, there were four people, wearing long coats and balaclavas, crouched behind the bushes. They looked like they were waiting to ambush somebody.

My guess was right, but that didn't make me happy at all. In fact the whole thing made me want to shrivel up in horror.

Because they were ambushing the girl, and her friends.

It happened very suddenly, the moment they passed the gate, the figures jumped up and ran at them. The girl screamed and ran away, but it was like she already knew that they were ambushing her. The two red heads darted after her, only the red headed girl tripped, and sprawled across the pavement.

"Fire!" The other girl screamed, but she didn't stop.

The first balaclava clad figure raced toward the fallen girl, gathering her up and injecting something into her arm. She went limp almost at once and the man took her back to the park.

I didn't see what he did with her; I was concentrating on the other two

The other figures raced after the girl and her friend. One lingered behind slightly.

Then I heard something that made my blood go cold. One of the figures ahead called out to the lingering figure, "Hurry up Dylan, we've got to catch them before they attract anyone's attention!"

That figure was me, I was sure of it. I was helping to ambush the girl and her friends! But the other balaclava clad people (let's call them Tally and Shorty, shall we?) were right; the two of them had made it almost to the end of the street, twenty metres away, screaming for help.

The other man came back out of the park, a gun in his hand.

"I'll deal with them," He said, then aimed and fired. There was a loud bang, and the boy toppled over. The girl screamed, running towards him.

"Jam! Jam!" She yelled, and then she was on the ground shaking him. The man slipped the gun back into his jacket and let Tally and Shorty do all the work

Tally and Shorty closed in. "Go" I wanted to scream, "Run, get help! Don't stay here and get captured!" But I couldn't move, I couldn't scream or yell, or do anything at all.

Tally grabbed the girl, and she finally realised she'd been captured too. "No! Get off! Get off!" She screamed and kicked and tried to scratch his arms, or her arms, I couldn't tell. "Help!" The girl screamed, as Shorty brought out a needle and advanced towards her. "Help!"

And I could swear she was looking straight at me. It was heartbreaking; being stuck here, not able to do anything to help her.

Shorty finally injected the girl and she stopped thrashing, slumping into Tally. I looked around, to see if anyone had heard the shouts and come to see what had happened. There was not a single person in sight.

Everything started to go fuzzy then, like a whole ton of mist had come down around me. I felt like I was spinning all over the place, _again_, completely weightless, and, I've gotta tell you, it is _so_ not a nice feeling.

When the spinning finally stopped and I could open my eyes again (I don't know quite when I shut them, but I can remember opening them), I was back in the weird room with Tie-Cho. I looked around, shivering, I was suddenly freezing. Tie-Cho was staring at me, his mouth wide open.

"What?" I demanded, standing up now. Tie-Cho didn't answer, he didn't even blink. I walked over to him and snapped my fingers in front of his face.

"Tie-Cho? Hello? Anybody in there?" I asked as I shook his shoulders.

Maybe he'd had a heart attack, or something. Can people have a heart attack and still be standing up? In all the movies, the people collapse on the floor. I walked over to the door. Maybe I should go get help.

Out in the corridor, there was a woman with her back to me, frozen mid-step. She had a long coat on and a shoulder bag, with a laptop sticking out of it, over her shoulder. I hurried past her, into the entrance hall. The small woman behind the desk was in the middle of lighting a cigarette. The flame from the red lighter wasn't even flickering. Someone was in the middle of the electric doors, which had frozen opening for him. I glanced at his chrome watch. 3:25pm. It was stuck or something, because none of the hands were moving. I frowned, who would wear a watch that didn't work?

Then it hit me.

"Oh, God" I muttered, "I am _sooo _thick!"

The guys watch hands weren't moving because I had stopped time! Everyone was frozen in place because time had stopped.

I wondered how long it would take for this to wear off, and decided to head back to the room Tie-Cho was in. I sat down on one of the beanbags that had been tucked away in the corner of the room, which was why I hadn't seen them on the way in. I waited for time to resume. And waited. And waited.

The most frustrating thing was all the clocks had stopped, including my watch, so I had no idea how much time was passing. No wait. No time was passing, so I had no idea how much no-time was passing. I _think_ that made sense.

I was starting to wonder if time would stay like this forever. After suffering from boredom a while, an idea came to me. I'd paused time, right? So maybe I had to un-pause it, rather than trying to make time un-pause itself.

I stood up, just because I thought it made the thing more official, and said, "Time, play again!"

Nothing happened. I tried "Un-pause, Time," and "Restart!" and even, "Why won't you un-pause you stupid thing!", whilst kicking the wall, and for your information, none of them worked.

Then, suddenly, I spread my arms out wide lifted my head to the sky and shouted really loudly, "Time, I, the only person who can control you, demand you to continue!" I have no idea why I did it, or how I knew what to say, but what do you know? It actually worked!

Of course, I was left in the middle of the room with my arms open, staring up at the sky like an idiot, but still.

Tie-Cho finished sucking in his gasp and nearly fell over, which probably shouldn't be a surprise, since he'd probably seen me sitting on the floor, meditating one minute, and standing up trying to give someone a massive hug the next.

I lowered my arms.

"Hey," I said.

"Tie-Cho has not seen such great talent ever!" Tie-Cho told me.

"Oh… thanks, I think," I told him.

"What did you do?" Tie-Cho asked me suddenly.

"Um… I think I stopped time," I told him. I decided not to tell him about the vision thing about the girl that I'd seen unless he asked.

"Tie-Cho thinks that you have great talent." Tie-Cho said again.

"Yeah, you told me before," I muttered.

Tie-Cho went to the door, "Stay here, Tie-Cho will come back in a moment." He stated

I sat down on the beanbag again and waited. Tie-Cho came in a few minutes later, followed by the woman who I'd seen frozen in the corridor. She'd lost the bag, but it was definitely the same woman. She sat down on the floor beside me, and held up her hand, "I'm Lizzie, Lizzie Abbis."

I shook her hand, "Nice to meet you,"

"Tie-Cho says you stopped time," She said sceptically.

"I did," I told her, then added, to prove myself right, "You were walking down the corridor, when I looked outside,"

Lizzie looked surprised. "I was outside just a minute ago, tell me, then. What did I have over my shoulder? A backpack or nothing?"

I noticed that she hadn't mentioned a shoulder bag, so that, if I had been guessing I would have gotten either answer wrong, leaving no possibility for me to guess the right answer accidentally.

"Neither" I answered, "You had a shoulder bag on, and there was a laptop sticking out of it."

Lizzie scowled; clearly she didn't appreciate being outsmarted. She chose another way to try to prove me wrong. "It takes most people weeks of training for their powers to even start to become distinct, you should have dabbled in a bit of everything before your true power settles; you should never have been able to do that first time, and have it work well!"

"Maybe I'm different?" I suggested. "Look, I'll try it again, OK? If I prove to you that I can do it, will you stop trying to make me look like an idiot for saying I can stop time?"

I didn't wait for answer, just closed my eyes, emptied my mind and focused on my images. In the background, I could hear Lizzie hissing to me. "You won't be able to do it again! I'll bet you didn't do it last time!"

My spine tingled, and once more the hairs on my arms stood up. A now familiar rush of warmth flooded me, and like last time, I felt as if my whole body was vibrating. Finally a third image came forward, pushing the other images aside as it filled my brain. This time I didn't fight it, instead, I leaned forward to embrace it. The spinning was still sickening, but, as before, it stopped quickly.

I opened my eyes. I was inside this time, and it was really dark. Two figures were sitting on the widow seat, almost invisible, only the dim torch one of them was holding up made their outlines distinguishable. They were reading two separate pieces of paper. It was that red head boy, Jam, or something, and the girl.

I felt a twist of jealousy. I realised I would give up almost anything to be the one sitting beside the girl. I didn't even know her name. I could see her watch from here, as it was glow in the dark. 10:35 Mon 15 Dec. So this was happened yesterday night. Weird. Then the girl started talking, "Holy Crap, do you want to get killed, Jam, 'cos Mr. Spleed is gonna kill you, seriously,"

Her voice was amazing. I mean, sure, I've heard it before, but then she'd been screaming, not joking and messing around. Jam pulled out what looked like a pen, and started writing on his piece of paper. He didn't turn to look at the girl when he said, "I'd like to see him try,"

I found I could move this time, but when I tried to lean on the wall, I fell right through it. I yelped, but no one seemed to hear it. I walked back through the wall and over to the girl, sitting down on the seat next to her. I leaned over to see what was on the piece of paper. The first piece of writing was incredibly messy; I could only just read it;

Gorilla's have very keen senses that allow them to here even the slightest whisper in a classroom. Most Gorillas' are perfectly civilised, but occasionally, there is an insane one. The insane Gorilla's tend to have long noses, with spectacles perched on the end of them. They have eyes so narrow they can hardly see, and run around on two feet wearing suits. These Gorilla's never talk quietly, they prefer to scream and shout at people. Almost always the Gorilla's are bald. A Chinese zoo expert, named zoodalc Cheng-chong, states, there is only one known insane Gorilla in England, but we have yet to capture it. This Gorilla goes by the name, MR. Spleed, if anyone knows info on his whereabouts, please contact us now. But the second half, that the girl was writing, was considerably neater, although she had done an OK job of imitating the handwriting, Zoodalc Cheng-Chong also stated that he suspected another insane Gorilla, which they are naming Mr Spleedio, is near to Mr Spleed, and says that the first place any insane Gorilla would go to is a school, Cheng-Chong urges anyone who feels intimidated by a strange teacher that storms around screaming at people, is bald and has a long nose with glasses perched on the end of them to come forward and say so. He has given forth his contact number, which is listed below, . Thank you for taking the time to read my essay Mr. Spleed, I hope you enjoyed it, as you had a very big part in it. I would also like to say that all of this is completely true, if Mr. Spleed claims he is not an insane Gorilla, then he is lying. Thanks once again, Jam.

It was obvious that Jam had written the first part, and that this was something to do with an essay that they had had to write, probably from school, and presumably set by a teacher called Mr. Spleed. The girl finished rereading the piece of paper, and was waiting patiently for Jam to finish. Once he had she said, "Give me mine, we'll read over them and change the things that we want to,"

They swapped pieces of paper. I read the girl's essay.

The Gorilla is a descendent of the African Elephant. Its furry animal skin means that a banana will not see it when it tries to sneak up on it. The Gorilla is the Banana's natural predator. A Gorilla's fingers and toes mark how many battles it has been in, and the most fingers and toes award goes to Anjay the Gorilla. Anjay has fifty six fingers, and ninety seven toes, what a brave Gorilla! The Gorilla's time line is linked with ours throughout history, when we had the First World War, the Gorilla's were there, fighting on Brittan's side. During the Second World War, once again, the Gorilla's came to our aid, stealing all the Russian's food, and throwing banana's in the face of Hitler. We owe our freedom to the Gorilla's, may they always be there for us.

The Gorillas have had a lot of help from us too, they struggled against racism that lemurs and racoons encouraged. When Gorillas had their own world war (the sixth in a hundred years) we were there to help. After several generations, the gorillas lost, but we helped them win the next three wars, and eventually made the dodo extinct because they sided with the spider monkeys in the gorillas' world war fifty six or the nineteenth world war in a hundred years. Gorillas made us what we are to day. If Albert Gorillastien hadn't been so clever, we still wouldn't know what a giraffe was. If Isaac Gorilla Newton, a descendent of the chief gorilla hadn't figured out what the saying "That'll happen when pigs fly" and bought us out of the dark and into the twenty first century, then we would have been stuck in an age of stupidness. I'd like to thank the Gorilla chief of the rainforest for helping me with this project and want to add that if you ever see a lonely gorilla, go up and give him a hug!

I laughed. The two of them sure knew how to make their essays sound funny. Although every single sentence of them were completely untrue. The girl looked over at Jam, "This is brilliant, we should do this more often,"

Jam grinned at her, and I felt the twist of jealousy return. "'Zoodalc Cheng-Chong also stated that he suspected another insane Gorilla, which they are naming Mr. Spleedio…! Fantastic, Erin, fantastic!" And he doubled over laughing.

But I wasn't even listening anymore; I'd finally found out the girls name; Erin. It suited her, I thought. I was so consumed by the fact that I'd finally learnt her name that I almost didn't see the mist come down. "No!" I begged, "Just a little longer! Please!" But I was already spinning around again, my eyes squeezing shut automatically.

Once the spinning had stopped, I opened my eyes. By the looks of it, I'd cut Lizzie off mid-hiss, she was scowling at me, and her face was about an inch away from my ear. I climbed up, and then went in search of a permanent marker and mirror.

Ten minutes later, I stepped back to admire my handy work. "Perfect!" I declared.

I sat down facing Lizzie, then held the mirror in front of me, before chanting, "Time, I, the only person who can control you, demand you to continue," Immediately, Lizzie started talking,

"-Ever, ever, ever be able to- ! WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY FACE! YOU LITTLE FREAK!"


	9. Chapter 8

Erin's POV

* * *

OK, I'm not usually the nervous type, but when this afternoon's snowball fight arrived, I was sweating. Fire stood next to me, not at all nervous, which may surprise you, but Fire has her moments of bravery, and I've come to respect them. Fire wasn't going to sneak into Ashley's room until after the snowball fight had started, when we could be sure that Ashley would be fully occupied. Jam was somewhere near the back, clearly still unsure what to do about the two of us. In some ways, I wish I had just told Fire, but if those weirdo's really were after us, then at least I could tell Jam, I told you so!

All too quickly, the snowball fight started, and snow went flying all over. I ducked behind a wall of snow I'd made earlier, right by the bush, and directly opposite to the door to the orphanage, where I could sit and watch for anybody trying to get inside. Next to me, I had several large snowballs, and one of Ashley's earrings that I'd pick pocketed earlier. A few seconds later, I saw Fire creep around the back of the house, towards the glass doors, where she would go in from. I checked my watch. Fire had said it would take her around fifteen minutes to check the whole room. I really hoped so.

Whilst remaining completely hidden, I kept track of Ashley, wherever she went. It was actually rather funny watching Ashley getting whacked in the face again and again, being incredibly easy to hit, and giving everyone a reason to hate her had made her a popular target. I even spotted someone from her own team chucking a snowball at her!

I checked my watch, ten minutes had past. It was then that I noticed Ashley was making her way slowly over to the door. I cussed rather loudly, and Annie, who had been standing near my hiding place, nearly fell over in shock. If I hadn't been so desperate to stop Ashley, I might have laughed. I grabbed Ashley's earring and crawled out of my hiding place, and managed to get all the way around to the glass doors, seemingly unnoticed. Luck was with me, I guess. When I got inside, I made a dash for the door, aiming to lock it, when Sandra came through the hallway from the kitchen.

"Erin! What are you doing inside?" Sandra asked.

"Oh. Em…" I spotted Ashley sneaking through the front door, but I had an idea now, I pulled out Ashley's earring and showed it to Sandra, "I found this on the floor outside and thought I had better put it in a safe place, so I don't loose it."

Sandra came closer to take a better look at it, while Ashley edged forward, trying to get into the closet before Sandra turned around.

"Hmm… it looks like one of Ashley's earrings," Sandra told me, just as Ashley slipped on the wet puddle that her dripping clothes had made, right into the closed kitchen door, making a tremendous CRASH! Sandra turned around and spotted Ashley, "Oh, my! Are you OK! That was a very big bang! You must have hit your head hard! I didn't hear you come in either! You must have been ever so quiet!" She fussed over Ashley, helping her up and into a chair in the dining room. I suppressed a grin; whatever plans Ashley had for going upstairs were going to be somewhat delayed. I followed them through to the dinning room and turned to Ashley.

"Is this yours, Ashley," I asked her, holding out the earring again, "Only, I showed Sandra it, and she said it looked like one of your earrings, but I wasn't sure," I said in an innocent tone.

Ashley looked at the earring in surprise, then checked her pocket. "Yes, it is mine, I hadn't realised it was missing. Thank you for returning it to me," She said in a dazed voice.

She shook her head slightly, then began to get up. Sandra immediately tried to stop her. "Oh, no my dear, I think you should sit down a little longer, you did hit your head hard off that door!"

But Ashley merely pushed Sandra's restraining hands aside, stared up at her, and said, in a really weird voice, like three Ashley's were talking, all at once, yet she sounded soothing and calm, "No, thank you, I'm fine, in fact, I didn't even bump my head. I wasn't in the house at all. For all you know, I am still outside, playing in the snow,"

Sandra nodded to herself, "Yes still in the snow," and walked out of the room. I stared at Ashley in amazement, my mouth wide open. Wow. How did she do _that._

Ashley turned to look at me, taking in my look of amazement, and returning it with a look that was a mixture of annoyance and disgust. Then she walked out of the room, without even bothering to try that thing she had done with Sandra, on me. Like I wasn't even worth it. Not that I wanted her to, or anything.

I looked at my watch. Fire should have been able to get out and escape back to the snowball fight. I glanced up and down the corridor. No one was in sight, so no one would notice me. Very carefully, I climbed up the stairs to the girl's floor and inched over to the door, cupping my hands around my ear and leaning on the closed door. From inside I could here voices.

"…tomorrow, definitely, at the end of the school day… stick to them like bugs…" The man's voice was muffled and I had to guess most of that.

"You had better… will not fail again… Ranmond…" He went on.

"I won't , I swear I won't fail this time!" Squealed Ashley.

"We're gonna bring some… kids, make sure… I will see you soon," The man said.

It took me a few seconds to realise that the man was saying goodbye. I leapt away from the door and into my room, the room next to Ashley's, just before she opened the door and walked out.

I waited until I heard the front door open and close, before darting over to Ashley's room. I was up here now, so I may as well have a peek inside.

I opened the door and shut it behind me quickly. A small squeal came from behind me. I jumped round to face them, my heart jumping to my throat, then sighed in relief. Fire was climbing out of the wardrobe nearest me, and had obviously thought I was Ashley coming back.

"Oh." She breathed, "It's you,"

Fire looked deathly pale and I looked at her concerned for a minute, before helping her out of the wardrobe and onto the bed.

"Are you OK, you look like you're about to have a heart attack," I told her. "And why are you still up here,"

"Ashley has _so_ much stuff," She groaned, "I was just finishing off looking when I heard someone coming up the stairs, it could have been you, but I didn't want to stick around to find out. So I hid in the wardrobe. And then Ashley came in, and got out this weird box thingy, and a hologram or something of this man appeared in the middle of the room, and they just started talking about…" She left off there.

"I was listening to her conversation outside the door, and it didn't sound too good," I told her. "Did you see where she got the box from?" I added.

Fire nodded and pointed to the corner of the room, where the carpet had obviously been pulled up recently. I went over to inspect it, the, quite suddenly, reached forward and yanked it back. Underneath were a couple of loose floorboards.

"Help me out with these," I grunted to Fire as I started prying them loose.

When we finally got the floorboards out of the way, we were greatly rewarded. A single notebook lay underneath the floorboards, next to it was the weird box thing that Ashley had obviously used to communicate with the other dude, and underneath them both, was a scribbled note, in Ashley's handwriting;

wed 18th Dec, 4:45pm,collection point, deserted park, collection team~ Gonro, Paige, Abbis and Dylan Collect~ the three children in photo.

And underneath it was a photo of the three of us, a different one to the one she had dropped on the ground when she was meeting Scar Dude, but it was still clearly us. I stared at it in horror. Sure, we had known it was us they were after us, but by the sounds of this, they were aiming to kidnap us! What the h- -k was this all about? Why were they trying to 'collect' us? Who _were_ they?

I turned to Fire, who was wearing an almost identical mask of shock.

"How were you planning to show the evidence to Jam?" I asked her.

She blinked, then bought out her phone. On the back of it was a camera.

"Let's get started then…" I muttered, switching the phone on and taking a snap at the note, then picking up the notebook and started methodically taking a picture of every page.

The notebook wasn't even a quarter of the way full, so it took less than ten minutes. When I was done, I passed the phone, to Fire, who had been waiting nervously beside me, then placed the notebook inside the floor, in the right place, and shifted the floorboards back into position. I pulled the carpet back over the floor. On my way out, I peeked outside, everyone was still playing, and barely ten minutes had passed since I'd followed Ashley up the stairs, but it felt as if every minute in that room took up an hour of real life.

We hid the phone back in our room before continuing downstairs. We went round to the backdoor and went outside.

I turned to Fire, "You go back first, sneak in, and try to get to the middle before you draw attention to yourself, we don't want Ashley to be suspicious of anything, I'll wait a few minutes, then follow you. Remember," I reminded her just before she stepped around the corner of the house, "You are enjoying this,"

Fire flashed me a timid smile, then walked around the corner, back to the snowball fight. As soon as two minutes had passed, I snuck around the corner myself and dived into my hiding place behind the wall. Everything was the way it had been before. I grabbed a snowball and lobbed it at the nearest person from the other team. I almost smiled as it landed splat bang in the middle of the poor sods face. Almost.

Eventually, our team gave up, we had been losing badly for a while- partly because a select few of the team had wondered off for most of the time, not mentioning anyone in particular- so when four o'clock came, and you could barely see past your nose, our team were the first to break.

When tea came, Fire and I sat either side of Jam, who up until that stage, had been looking very lost, and between us we managed to give him a message without looking too conspicuous or letting anyone else overhear.

"Meet us downstairs in the playroom at half ten, we need to tell you something." I muttered.

"Huh?" Jam whispered back.

"Playroom. Half ten. Meet us there," Fire hissed, "Would you like directions too?"

"Um… no thanks, I can do without," Poor Jam was so confused by our behaviour, he couldn't even think up a snappy come back to Fire's comment.

I'm not even gonna pretend to feel sad for him; it was absolutely hilarious.

There was a colossal wait between tea time and ten o'clock (well, it seemed colossal, but it was actually only a few hours), but when everyone was finally in bed and asleep, Fire and I crept downstairs- equipped with a torch this time, and Fire's phone.

We sat on the floor of the playroom, under one of the tables, so that the bright light from Fire's phone wouldn't give us away, and waited for Jam to come.

Just when we thought he wasn't going to come, there came a whisper from the door, "Hello, you guys?"

I pushed up the table cloth, and whispered back, "Over here,"

Jam came over, and slipped under the table. "Why are we under here?" He asked.

"Because we've got evidence supporting what Erin told you, and we don't want to get caught," Fire hissed. Evidently, she was still annoyed at her brother for not believing me. We filled him in about our mission to find evidence before we showed him the photos, getting a good look at all the stuff ourselves, then we showed him the one with the details of our 'Collection'. After that, I told them about my latest news of Ashley, the way she'd talked to Sandra, and how she'd made Sandra think that she was still outside. And finally, Fire filled the two of us in with Ashley's conversation using that weird hologram box thing. There wasn't much new information to be given there, only that the man on the other side of the hologram thing, was called Lesley Gonro, and was leading the 'collecting mission'.

"Crap." Was all he said.

"Uh huh," Fire muttered sarcastically. Jam seemed to finally realise that he'd offended the two of us when he'd said he didn't believe us. "Sheesh, look I'm sorry if I upset you because I didn't believe you, but I believe you now," He apologized.

"Apology accepted," I muttered, "The real problem is, if we are going to be 'collected' tomorrow, what do we do about it?"

That stumped us, but I realised the answer was obvious. "We try to contact this Lockhore guy!"

The others looked at me, confused. "The man said that they were the bad guys, so anyone that they hate must be better than them, mustn't they?"

Fire nodded, but added, "Or worse,"

I gulped, she had a point.

"So," Jam asked, "If we can't avoid going past the park, 'cos it's the only way home, and we can't contact these other guys, 'cos we don't know how to, and they could be worse than these guys, what do we do?" He repeated his earlier question.

I thought, but just like before, I had an idea almost straight away. "Maybe we can't avoid going past the park, but we can still avoid being caught!"

Jam and Fire stared at me again. "Well, if we caught the _bus _home, then they wouldn't be able to 'collect' us, would they, or, say, we all got ill or hurt ourselves, and went home early, or got after-school detentions,"

Jam grinned, "Intentionally get into trouble? That's a brilliant idea! You are a genius!" Whilst Fire went pale, and muttered, "I don't think I would be able to,"

I was slightly put out, I mean, just not handing in her homework was all Fire needed to do to get a detention, but I realised that, if I was going to convince her, I would have to be harsh. "Look, Fire, it's either an after-school detention, a tiny stain on your perfect record, or possibly being kidnapped! Which one would you prefer,"

"Having a detention, I suppose," Fire muttered, though she didn't sound so sure.

Jam must have picked up her vibes of unsure-ness, because he muttered, "You really do have something wrong with your brain, Fire,"

Fire reddened considerably, but didn't answer.

"Look, we'll try for after-school detentions, OK, but if that doesn't work, we'll catch the bus home, and if that doesn't work, either, we'll wait at school until five," I told them.

"Right," Fire said unhappily.

"Brilliant," Jam grinned.

"Well then, if we're quite sorted, I think I'll go to bed," I said, and slipped out from under the table.

The others came out a few seconds later, scrambling up and following me out of the room. On the second floor, we waved goodnight to Jam, then Fire and I climbed to our own room. Fire fell asleep almost immediately, but I stayed up for a bit longer; I wasn't taking any chances; if there was the slightest possibility that we were going to get caught, I would at least be able to do something to escape.


	10. Chapter 9

Dylan's POV

Please review!

* * *

I put down the mirror, smirking, as I saw the perfectly even moustache and a goatee beard that I'd just drawn on her. I'd also restyled Lizzie's eyebrows, so that they were ten times thicker than before. "I thought it was an improvement. And, anyway, I've proved my point, I can stop time, and I've made a lasting mark." I showed her the permanent marker in my hand. Tie-Cho, who had been silent up until now, snickered.

"You little freak!" Lizzie screamed at me, so loud, I swear I could hear my eardrums pop, "How dare you do something like this? To Me! I'll make sure you're punished for this! I'll-" Lizzie was interrupted by a cough.

A tall man in a suit, that radiated leadership, was standing in the doorway. "Sorry to interrupt you," He said, smiling slightly when he saw Lizzie's face, "But I couldn't help overhearing your conversation from my office, on the sixth floor," I doubted anyone hadn't been able to hear Lizzie. "I was curious to what all the shouting was about, so I came down to see," He continued. "But, do go on, your ranting was rather amusing," And he came into the room and sat down on another bean bag in the corner.

Lizzie turned pink. "I-I-I was almost done anyway, Lesley." She stuttered.

"Ah, very well," 'Lesley' said then turned to me, "Hello! I'm Lesley Gonro, head of this building, and deputy of this whole site! What's your name?"

"Dylan," I muttered.

"Dylan, ah, yes, the new comer, yes, yes. So, Dylan," Lesley said as he settled into his beanbag, "Will you tell me what's going on? I assume this is about you, seem as though Tie-Cho doesn't tend to tick Lizzie off quite so much,"

Tie-Cho grinned.

"Well," I said, "Tie-Cho took me in here to teach me how to use my powers, and when I tried it, I felt like I was spinning all over the place, and when the spinning stopped, time had frozen," Again, I left out the part about Erin, "It took me a while to figure out how to unfreeze time, but I did eventually. Tie-Cho then asked me what I'd done, since, for him, one moment I'd been sitting on the floor in front of it, and the next, standing up over the other side of the room. Then Tie-Cho went out of the room, and came back with Lizzie here," I pointed to her, "Who refused to believe me, yapping on about how it was way to advanced and that I shouldn't be able to do any of it, so I told her that I'd pause time again, and do something to prove it too her. So I paused time, then gave Lizzie a much-needed makeover, sat back where I'd been sitting before, right next to her face, 'cause she'd been leaning in spitting insults in my ear, and held a mirror up in front of me, so when time started again, Lizzie would be looking straight into a reflection of her face. I thought it was very funny, but Lizzie didn't get the joke,"

Lesley laughed, whilst Lizzie scowled and glared at the floor.

Lesley turned back to me, serious now, "But Lizzie did have a point, what you have done is very advanced. But I believe you," He said, seeing my expression, "I can sense that you can stop time,"

I was confused now, sensing people who could stop time? It didn't make sense at all. Until I heard Lesley, who had carried on talking, oblivious to my expression, say, "You see, I can sense the powers of other people, I can only tell vaguely what they can do though, but my power is enough to sense that you can do something with time, which I have never, ever sensed before. However," He said, looking at me scolding, "I can also sense you have something to do with visions and the future and past. You have been looking into the future, every time you paused time, haven't you?" I bit my lip. Lesley keened forward eagerly "Well? Go on boy! It has been a long time since I've met another person with precognition!" I tried change the subject, "But I thought you could sense people's powers."

"Yes, but I have two different powers, just like you, Dylan," Lesley told me patiently. "So, where were we, ah yes, what visions have you had Dylan?"

I decided to tell the truth, just with fewer details.

"I just see this girl and her two friends," I said.

"Describe them then!" Lesley said, practically yelping in excitement.

"Well, I found out that the girl was called Erin," I said hesitantly, "And that her friends are called Jam and Fire, they're brother and sister or something, and they both have really red hair. Erin has brown curly hair and vivid green eyes," I hoped that I'd given Lesley enough information to satisfy his curiosity. I'm not sure whether I did or not, because the next thing I know, Lesley's whipped a photo out of his pocket, "Is it these three your seeing?" He asked.

I stared at the photo. Sure, they were younger, but they looked almost exactly the same. I looked up, "Yeah, it's these three, but, why did you want to know? And how did you get this picture?" I asked.

Lizzie snorted. "Let me guess, that collecting mission you were hinting to me about?" Lesley nodded. "Knew it!" Lizzie muttered to herself.

"What's a collecting mission?" I asked, though I had a feeling it was something to do with my first vision of Erin.

"Well, has Tie-Cho told you about how the government want to destroy us?" Lesley asked me, as he took back the photo of Erin, Fire and Jam. I nodded. "And about how they've hired some bad Zytons to track us down?" I nodded again. "Collecting missions is where one of the people that we've sent out to find other Zytons, finds one or two of them, who are unaware of what they can do, and we take them here, before the government finds them and kills them."

"OK," I said, though inside, I felt anything _but _OK. On the one hand, there was the fact that these people were going to save Erin and her friends from the government, but on the other hand, why wouldn't they just go up and explain to them who they were, rather than knocking them out and kidnapping them? Was what they were doing right or wrong? Or was it a mixture of the two? I decided to try and get some more information from Lesley.

"So, like, the scar dude who came to take me here, he was on a collecting mission?"

"Whoa! Back up! Sinel himself collected you?" Lizzie asked.

I frowned, but inside I was grinning; all this place needed was a couple of big mouths, or everyone in this room, and practically all their secrets would be known! "Who's Sinel? The scar dude who picked me up?"

"Who's Sinel?" Lizzie all but shrieked, "Only the bloody leader of this whole entire place! If he personally came to collect you, then you must be really important!"

"Oh," I muttered.

"Don't let that go to your head though! The last thing you need is a bigger ego!" Lizzie snapped.

"Hmm…" Lesley muttered, then he stood up rather abruptly. "I really must get going!" He announced, and walked out of the room without a backwards glance.

"He's up to something," Lizzie said darkly, then turned to us. "Well, I can't say it's been a pleasure," And stalked out of the room.

"Tie-Cho must get going too!" Tie-Cho said, making me jump; he'd been so quiet throughout the whole of the conversation, I'd all but forgotten about him.

"Yeah, see you later, Tie-Cho!" I muttered as he walked out of the room. I stood up and stretched; I felt like I'd been sitting on the floor for years.

I walked back to my room and sat on the bed, thinking. I was doing that a lot lately. This time, I was thinking if I could freeze time without having a vision, or have a vision without freezing time. Or If I could control my visions. I decided to see if I could just stop time, by itself, no visions included.

I closed my eyes and focused on the images for the third time. This time, when the third image came forward, I though, "No, freeze, I want time to stop." And the image froze. I opened my eyes. Nothing seemed to have happened, but then, there was no one else in the room. I glanced at the digital clock in my room. The numbers, that flashed once every second, had frozen. I grinned; I'd done it! I decided that I may as well try experimenting, now that I'd done this. I pressed on my watch, and focused on trying to make it start again. Soon enough, I heard the familiar tick of the second hand, counting the seconds. I tried to stop it again. This proved trickier than the other things I'd done, as it took me several attempts to do it. Then I decided to try it on a person. I checked all the rooms down the corridor, and finally found someone who was asleep. I pressed down on their arm, imagining them breathing, their chest moving up and down. Nothing. I gave up after several attempts. Maybe humans just weren't meant to be un-paused while time was still paused.

I headed downstairs, suddenly hungry, I mean, why cue up for stuff, when you can just grab something, while time was paused. Yesterday and so far today, I'd just ordered room service- yes you can do that! This place is practically a hotel!- so I hadn't really met much people. The cafeteria was packed full of frozen people, which made sense, since it was around five, a popular time to eat tea. I walked to the front of the line and grabbed a plate. There was a big counter, where you could help yourself to what was there. Today they were serving fish and chips. I grabbed a massive piece of fish and one or two chips and a few sachets of ketchup, then sat down in the corner of the room. My meal was very peaceful, I can tell you that.

I was starting to enjoy being the only one around- if you don't count the frozen statues- it was quiet and, like I said before, it was very peaceful, but it was also kind of disturbing, opening a door, and almost walking into a frozen person.

After doing a bit of exploring, I went back to my room, determined to find a way to have a vision without freezing time. Once inside room, I said, "Time, I, the only person who can control you, demand you to continue," My watch started ticking again. I sighed and looked around my room for inspiration on how to start a vision without freezing time.

Eventually, I just settled for making it up as I go along, it'd worked for me before.

I don't think I need to go into detail about the images again, but when I opened my eyes, I was in a dull, grey room, presumably an office. Instinctively, I checked my watch, only to realise that it would be tuned to the time where my body was, not this time. I looked on the wall for a clock, and found that the time was six o'clock, an hour from now. A man was sitting in a chair, behind a desk, and, with a start, I realised it was Lesley. In front of him, was a weird hologram type thing. The hologram was of a girl who was slightly older than me. She had blonde hair and hazel eyes, and all of her clothes screamed designer. The man was talking.

"-I plan to take Paige and Abbis, but I'd also quite like to take Dylan with me, if we're desperate, we can use his power to catch the three of them. Anyway, I've taken quite a shine to him. His other power is-"

"Precognition? Yeah, figures," The other girl muttered.

"Now now, Ranmond, I wouldn't be quite so cheeky, after all, you slipped up and used the Deadly Voices in front of one of them, and they're too powerful for the Deadly Voices to work on them, so you can't control them, or make them forget what they saw," Lesley scolded her.

The girl whitened. "I _am_ sorry about that. I panicked, knowing that you would call any minute now, and it would give quite a lot away to Lockhore if the whole of this building disintegrated,"

"I suppose it couldn't really be helped. We will just have to hope that she dismisses it as her imagination working to hard. Maybe Sinel might be able to overpower her mind, and change her memories of what happened when we get them here. It wouldn't do, letting everyone know what we can do, they'll suspect us, and quite rightly, as we've used the Deadly Voices on as many of them as we can. But anyway, back to the plan. We'll catch them tomorrow, definitely, at the end of the school day, outside the disused park, at 4:45, just make sure that they're there, stick to them like bugs, or a bug, at least, I believe that Sinel has made it clear what will happen if you fail, so you had better not. Promise me you will not fail again, for both of our sakes, Ranmond."

"I won't, I swear I won't fail this time!" The girl, Ranmond, squeaked.

The vision started to end as I heard Lesley start talking, so I missed some of it, "Sinel and I have agreed, we're gonna… just as long as we get the kids, make sure that they're there, Ranmond… I will see you soon," The man said, and waved a hand over the hologram, causing it to break up and disappear. The vision ended completely and I was spinning around again, just before the spinning stopped, I thought, "I want time to continue, don't stop this time," and I opened my eyes.

Time had stopped. I guess I must have been worn out of power, or something, and that's why I couldn't control anything right now. I muttered, "Time, I, the only person who can control you, demand you to continue," and leaned against the wall.

They had been talking about Erin, Jam and Fire, I was sure of it. But what were the Deadly Voices that they so desperately want to keep from everyone? And what was the whole, "Sinel might be able to over power her mind? Whose mind?

It was still only five-ish, but I felt like it should have been much later. It's all of that time stopping, I realised. I frowned, thinking. Nothing else was going to happen, so I may as well have an incredibly early night. I climbed into bed, not even bothering with pyjamas, or even taking off my shoes and socks, and fell asleep instantly.

When I woke up, it was light outside, or at least, as light as it can get in the middle of the winter.

I checked my watch. "Sugar!" I yelped, clambering out of bed. It was ten o'clock in the morning, and I'd slept for at more than twelve hours straight! I changed into fresh clothes, and shoved my old clothes into the washer with all of my other dirty clothes. I kept meaning to wash all of my stuff, but I hadn't really got around to it. On the way out, I found an envelope that someone had evidently slipped under my door. I opened it and took out the note inside, moving back over to the bed, so I could sit down.

Dear Dylan,

I would appreciate it if you could come to my office at 10:30 today; I have some important things to talk about.

Yours sincerely,

Lesley

Was what the note said. I stuffed the note in my pocket, and headed out of my room to breakfast, walking quickly; if I had to be at Lesley's office in half an hour, then I'd better get going.

Down in the cafeteria, it was very quiet. I suppose most people had had breakfast and gone off to do whatever people here did. I sat down on an empty table and tucked into my breakfast, which consisted of some cheerio's, an apple and a bowl of strawberries and grapes. I was starving, so it didn't take me long to eat everything. Once I had finished, I stood up and left the room, checking the time on the way out. 10:25. I was probably going to be on time.

When I arrived outside Lesley's office (puffing and panting 'cos I'd half ran up six flights of stairs, which, believe me is not an easy thing to do) I knocked on the door.

"Come in," I heard Lesley say.

I walked in. It was the same office as in my vision, only this time; it was a lot more crowded. Lesley had taken his place behind the desk, and in front of it, was Lizzie, who still had permanent marker all over her face, and a man I've never seen before, but that's not surprising, since I've hardly seen anyone here. He was massive, all thick and muscular, and strong.

"Hi, freak," Lizzie grunted at me. I smiled at her, like bumping into her had been a pleasant surprise.

"Lizzie! So nice to see you again!"

"Get lost," She muttered.

"Now now, Lizzie," Lesley cautioned her, then he turned to me, "Dylan, I'd like you to meet Andy, Andy Paige." He gestured to the giant, man next to me.

"Hi," I muttered to him, slightly intimidated by his muscular body.

"Pleasure to meet you," He grunted back. I guessed he was one of those men who said very little, which was fine by me.

"Now, Dylan, you know how we told you about collecting missions?" Lesley asked, but he didn't pause for a reply, "Well, I've decided to let you come on one. We'll be heading out immediately, since we've got to catch a train in to the middle of London, and drive out to a small town a few miles outside of London."

"Who are we collecting?" I asked, though I already knew.

"Why, we're collecting Erin and her friends, Fire and Jam," Lesley told me, as we headed out of the door.


	11. Chapter 10

Erin's POV

Please Review XD

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The next morning, the alarm blared, waking me up. I groaned, glared at the clock and flung it across the room somewhere. Fire, as usual, got up first, and ran to switch off the alarm. I sat up, cursing the very word school.

Marya immediately marched out of the room to go get her breakfast, while Fire and I got dressed. In Marya's eyes, the less time spent with us, the better, which meant she left us alone a lot of the time. But that was fine by us.

We met Jam downstairs, and had breakfast, scrambled eggs and bacon, before marching determinedly to the door. In the orphanage, only the kids under seven got driven to school (because they couldn't fit everyone in the minibus), the rest could catch the bus or walk, as long as they got up at the right time, and so, we were free to leave for school anytime we wanted, as long as we got there on time.

When we arrived at school, we were the first of our form in.

"So," I asked, when we'd finished sorting out our books for the day, "How are you going to get detentions?"

Jam grinned and said two words, "Gorilla essay," Which would probably work, as his was so offending.

"Me too," I told him, "What about you, Fire?" I asked.

"I'll not hand in my maths homework," She said.

"Well then, we're all good!" I muttered with fake enthusiasm.

The day passed slowly and I was almost completely consumed with boredom, only a small part of my brain was worried about what would happen later on today. Ashley came in then, with a load of her friends from our form. She gave us one of her award winning scowls, and then went back to talking with everyone else.

Fire got her detention in Maths, looking very upset by the fact that she now had a tiny stain on her perfect record.

When we came into English, luck was with us; Mr. Spleed was in a very bad mood, so it wouldn't take much to make him give us detentions.

Sure enough, minutes after we'd handed in our essays, Mr. Spleed screamed, "Jam Lansfield! Erin Laurel! Come here now!"

He even read out some of our essays to prove his point, which set the class off into hysterical laughter, and, in turn made him angrier. He shoved the essays back in our hands and roared. "Detention, both of you! After school until five o'clock!"

We went back to our seats, trying not to look too relieved. The only people in the class not laughing at us were Fire and Ashley, both of whom were scowling.

"_What_ did you put in your essays?" She hissed at us as we sat back down next to her.

We gave her our essays to read through. By the time she'd finished looking at them, she looked ready to kill us.

The rest of the day went faster, now that we knew that we wouldn't be able to go home until five. Or, at least that was what we thought, until the end of the school day, at half four, Mr. Spleed and Ms. Pine, our maths teacher, came rushing up to us.

"You! You won't be able to have your detention tonight. All the detention rooms are full. I've swapped it for tomorrow night." Mr. Spleed growled at Jam and me then stormed off.

"I'm afraid that you won't be getting a detention after all Fire! All that hassle over nothing! It turned out that the maths papers didn't need to be in until tomorrow! Silly me!" Ms. Pine told a delighted Fire, then walked off.

Jam and I stared after the two teachers in horror.

"I can't believe I got off!" Fire yelped happily.

"Neither can I," I muttered, "Ashley must have something thing to do with this, c'mon," I told the others, heading towards after school care, which was in the hall.

But when we arrived there, it was to find a very angry teacher shuffling everyone out of the hall yelling, "After school care isn't on tonight kids! There is a staff meeting here instead! Didn't you all get letters?"

All the other kids looked ecstatic by this news. "No after school club! Fantastic!"

"Ashley," The three of us muttered in disgust.

"What now," Jam asked us, as we were swept outside by the crowd of kids. "Bus?"

"Yeah, the last one leaves at 4:40 though, so if we want to get there in time to catch it, we'd better hurry."

We ran down the street, and saw, to our horror, the last bus pull out of the bus stop.

"Hey!" Jam frowned, looking at his watch. "That one was early!"

"Or it could've been late?" I asked.

Fire shook her head, "It was the 65 bus, which is the last one of the day, and the one before that's the 47, so it couldn't just have been late."

We turned back, hoping to be able to hide out in the school until five, but the teacher was just shutting the gates behind us.

"I guess there's nothing else to do," I sighed, eyeing the road that led back to the orphanage.

"Guess not," Fire muttered, and started walking. I came up next to her.

"At least we'll finally find out what all of this is about," I said, trying to remain positive.

Jam was still standing in front of the deserted school gates. "Wait a second!" He said hurrying to catch up with us. "You guys are actually just gonna walk in to trap? That's crazy!"

"Well, it's most likely that Ashley will have gotten someone to make sure that we got a move on if they spotted us trying to wait back there. And anyway, we've got a slight advantage against whoever's trying to 'collect' us 'cos we know what they're doing, so if they jump out at us, we'll run away rather than stand there staring at them like idiots. Who knows, maybe we'll get away from them, or maybe this whole thing is Ashley playing a stupid joke on us," I said.

"We'll that hologram wasn't exactly a practical joke thing, was it?" Fire pointed out.

"Thank you," I told her with mock irritation, "For crushing my dream into a thousand tiny pieces."

Fire grinned, "Any time,"

Jam looked at us weirdly, but didn't say anything.

I was really nervous, but I didn't have anything on Jam, who was practically shaking with fear.

"You need to do scary stuff more often," I told him.

Jam smiled faintly. "Well, it's OK doing scary stuff if it involves pissing somebody off, but apart from that, I'm a complete coward."

I grinned, then teased him, "Your sister looks like she wants to go up and slap every single one of these dudes for even daring to come near us. There is a _lot_ of differences between you two."

Jam got what I was hinting about. "Oh, come on. Don't older sisters have to look after their younger brothers or something? Besides, I'm not _that _cowardly" Jam argued. Fire had always prided herself in being older than Jam, even if it had only been by a few minutes.

"Um… Jam, you just admitted to being… how did you put it? Oh yes! A complete coward," Fire told him as we turned the corner, into the street another street, and saw immediately the gate to the disused park.

I gulped, my mouth going dry. Jam suddenly lost his urgency to argue with his sister.

"What was that phrase again," I whispered, don't ask me why I did, it just felt appropriate, "Out of the saucepan and into the fire?"

"Oh God." Fire muttered, "You are _so_ helpless!"

But she didn't say anything else. We were about ten metres away from the park now. None of us said anything. I glanced around, forcing myself to look everywhere but the park. Five metres away. Jam shivered, and walked closer to us. Three metres away. Fire was looking straight ahead, refusing to look at either of us. Zero metres away.


	12. Chapter 11

Dylan's POV

Review plz! :)

* * *

We drove to the train station (which took us three quarters of an hour; because the town was so far away) and got there just in time to catch the train. The journey seemed to be very long, and I would have been bored to tears, if it hadn't been for the fact that I was about to jump up and ram my head into the nearest wall. The whole of my mind was screaming, "I'm not ready for this! I can't do it. I can't act like I haven't seen this before, or like the whole of this sickens me!"

It took us an hour and a half to get to London, so we stopped to get a takeaway meal from KFC, but I was sure I wouldn't be able to eat a single thing, then Lesley took us over to his friend's apartment. It was at the bottom of one of those massive sky scrapers that are full of apartments.

"This is my friend's house," He said, stating the more-than-obvious.

According to Lesley, there were tonnes of Zytons who lived off campus, and helped search for other Zytons.

The door opened, and a short, fat man with greasy hair greeted us.

"Lesley! It's great to see you again!"

"Hi, Larry!" Lesley grinned, and then went back to being all business-like, "Now, were running late, so we'll have lunch in the car," He held up the bag of KFC food.

"Excellent! Let's get going!" Larry said, and marched us all into the garage, at the bottom of the building. A van was parked there waiting for us. Larry unlocked it and we got in.

The van was spacious; the front seat was basically a not-so-comfy-more-car-like sofa. The middle and back seats were just the same. The only windows in the van were the front window, and the ones either side of it (so that Larry could actually _drive_, without crashing into something) and they were tinted so that no one could see in.

Larry was driving and Lesley was sitting next to him, so I nabbed the back seats, where I would be able to think in peace. Lizzie and Andy were left with the middle seats, which Lizzie didn't look happy about.

We polished off the KFC in record time, or rather, everyone else did; I'd suddenly lost my appetite. The others had several animated discussions, about all sorts of things. They seemed fine with the fact that we were a few hours away from kidnapping some innocent teenagers, even if we were saving them from the government. They didn't seem to notice how little I was taking part, but I didn't mind. The journey was taking a long time, like everything was delibrately going slower to allow me to torture myself even more.

Around two hours later, Larry stopped to refuel, and Lesley climbed into the back to talk with the rest of us, and me in particular.

"Now, Dylan, this is your first ever collection mission, so it's OK to be nervous," He reassured me, "We've already approached Erin, Fire and Jam, but they didn't believe us when we told them that they were Zytons, and that the government wants to kill them. Unfortunately, one of our spies inside of the government says that they have been found, so the government will move any day now to try and kill them, which leaves us with no more choice than to take them by force,"

They refuse to believe that they were Zytons? Well, who wouldn't? But if all of what Lesley had said was true, then it explained the way they knew that we were coming to 'collect' them, in the vision and why we were taking them by force; if the government knew where they were, then we couldn't take forever with the gentle approach. I nodded at Lesley to show I understood. "Great!" He said, and then started talking with the other two, leaving me to think things over. I bit my lip; I still didn't think it was right to do this, but I wasn't going to tell anyone that.

We arrived outside the disused park, just after half past four. Larry dropped us off, and drove to a street about a mile away, so he could easily drive back to pick us up once we were done here. I shivered, thinking of the vision, and glanced towards the place I'd been standing then.

Lesley came over, and handed me a long coat, which went down to my thighs and a balaclava that covered everything but my eyes. I glanced over at Andy and Lizzie, who I'd called Tally and Shorty in my vision. Lesley directed us over to the bush, and we crouched behind it. I looked at my watch. 4:40, five minutes to go.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, Erin, Fire and Jam came into view. They looked nervous, and were trying to make a joke or something, but it wasn't working. They came nearer, falling silent quickly, all attempts at humour gone. I readied myself to jump up, as the came closer to the park gate.

Lesley signalled for us to get ready. He counted down on his fingers. Just when his fingers reached zero, and we jumped up, they passed the gate.

I don't really want to go through what happened again, so I'll skip that part. All I have to say is that, no, the gun Lesley had, did not have bullets in, only tranquilizer darts.

Once Andy and Lizzie had gotten Erin and Jam into the park, and laid them on the grass, Lesley phoned for Larry to come. Lesley came over to us once he'd done that. He looked troubled.

"They knew that we were there," He said to us.

"I know, the way they ran off immediately, rather than checking who it was first. But I can't see how they could have." Lizzie added, as Larry came into sight. We were using the van to drive back to campus in- we couldn't exactly drag three unconscious people with us around a train station, could we?

Lesley nodded. I frowned to myself, they had probably guessed we were there because we'd approached them before. I pushed my doubt to the back of my mind, and helped the others get them into the back of the car. They weren't going to get killed by the government, and that was all that really mattered.

"They'll have to sit in with you, Dylan, if you don't mind. We can't exactly let them roll around in the boot."

If I didn't mind having three unconscious teenagers sitting next to me, even if I did feel strongly about one of them? Of course I did! But I just nodded and climbed into the seat next to them.

Erin was right next to me. I sighed. This was going to be a long journey. Half way there, Erin slipped of the seat and onto my lap. I tried propping her up next to me again, but she slipped back over immediately, so I gave up. Thankfully, the other two stayed put, so I could sit memorising Erin's face without disturbance. I couldn't believe that I had finally met her, or rather; I couldn't believe that I was seeing her, outside of my visions of the future/past, as meeting her only _really _counted when she was awake.

I looked between everyone's shoulders out of the front window, and wondered, once again, if I really was with the good guys. I wondered what would happen if I wasn't. And if I had been captured by the bad guys, what extremes they would go to, to keep me? If what they said about the government was true, and we really were being hunted, my life was going to be hard anyway, but if these guys were secretly evil, then I really was in trouble. I bit my lip and glanced down at Erin, then at Fire and Jam. If I was in trouble, then so were these three, and I'd help get them into this mess. I sighed softly, and turned back to the window, wondering what the future had in store for us all.


	13. Chapter 12

Suddenly, four people, all wearing balaclavas, jumped up from behind a bush, just inside the park. I screamed, my automatic reaction to anything that takes me by surprise, and sprinted down the street, the others just behind. Then Fire tripped and fell over. I looked back, just in time to see one of the dudes come forward and grab her.

"Fire!" I screamed, but I kept running. I panicked. What were we supposed to do? If we went back, we'd get caught, but of we carried on, we'd have to leave Fire behind. I couldn't believe we'd decided to do this! I started screaming for help, Jam doing exactly the same thing as me, a metre behind me; I'd always been a good runner.

I heard someone shout from behind, "Hurry up, Dylan, we've got to catch them, before they attract anyone's attention!"

"Help!" I yelled. "Someone! Please! Help!"

And then I heard the gun sound. Jam tripped over behind me, almost instantaneously.

"Jam!" I yelled. "Jam!" I ran back towards him, completely forgetting about the other people coming towards us. I shook Jam's shoulders. He didn't react. I turned him over, so I could see his face. His eyes were closed. Didn't people always die with their eyes open? A spark of hope flickered inside me as I realised that there wasn't even blood anywhere on him.

Then I felt strong arm's wrap around my stomach, and yank me off the ground, and the flicker got crushed under a massive lump of despair. "No!" I screamed, tearing at the man's hands, desperately trying to pull him off me, "Get off! Get off!" I started kicking him, but that didn't seem to affect him at all.

Another person came forward, holding a needle. I didn't want to know what was inside it. "Help!" I yelled once more, searching for anyone who could help.

And then I saw him. OK, really bad time to start having a crush on someone, but still. He had blonde hair and deep blue eyes, he was tall, but not too tall, and his skin was, like, really tanned and everything. He was looking straight at me, clearly horrified.

"Help!" I yelled at him, remembering my situation finally. But then the boy flickered as if he was a ghost or something, and disappeared. I kicked and thrashed harder, but my arms and legs were starting to feel really sore from the effort, and I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it going much longer.

As if to prove my point, the person with the needle came forward, looming into my view. I tried kicking her instead. It didn't work. She held one of my hands steady and injected something in it. I cringed away, but it was too late.

My head started spinning, and everything went out of focus, I could feel my body going numb, I tried to fight it, but it was _way_ too overpowering. I succumbed to the darkness, and everything went black.


	14. Chapter 13

Dylan's POV

Enjoy!

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It was half seven by the time we got back. Lesley parked right outside a building that was hidden on the outskirts of campus, where no one could find it unless they knew it was there. Some men came out and took Erin and her friends (all still asleep) inside. Lesley then drove us back round to the normal buildings, and dropped us all off. I headed up to my room, deciding to order room service than face the cafeteria, as empty as it would be this time of day.

I ate a refreshing meal of fruit salad and some packets of Twix's. After that, I changed into some pyjamas and went to bed, not expecting to get much sleep at all.

When I got up, the next day, my first thought was; Erin.

Was she OK? Had she woken up yet?

I got dressed and decided that, if I could, I'd go ask Lesley if I could see her. I wondered if they would allow her to roam around campus like me. It would be cool, but, somehow, I doubted it. On the way out, my foot slipped on a small piece of paper. I looked at it, then grinned; this would make my day easier.

Dear Little Freak,

Unfortunately, Tie-Cho is away on campus business so he will not be able to teach you today. Your lessons for today have been cancelled.

Lizzie

P.S. Next time I might not cancel your lessons, and then you would get in trouble, but since you're new here, I decided to give you a second chance.

I guess Lizzie is the secretary or something, but that didn't matter, because, with Tie-Cho's lesson out of the way, I could definitely go see Lesley. I didn't bother with breakfast, and went right over to the other building, and up to the sixth floor. But as I approached Lesley's office, I saw the Scar Dude, Sinel, or whatever, entering.

I frowned. If the head of this place and the Lesley were talking, then I wouldn't be able to talk to Lesley about Erin. Another idea came to me. If I paused time, snuck through into Lesley's office, hid and then restarted time, I could listen to their whole conversation. I would be able to learn, finally, what these people were up to, and if they really were good people.

It took me less than a minute to freeze time. I walked forward, and opened Lesley's office door. The room was empty. I blinked. That was weird. I shut the door behind me, and walked into the room.

The office was exactly the same, only, I was sure there had been a filing cabinet in the room. I walked over to where it had been, and smashed my knee of something hard.

"Sugar!" I cussed, hopping about madly on my other leg, clutching my knee. I sat down to examine my knee. A massive bruise was already showing up. Ouch.

Once I was sure my knee was fine, I stood up and walked over to the place where I had banged my knee, and felt around.

The filing cabinet was still there, but it was invisible. I felt around it, trying to find the draws on the front, but all four sides were completely smooth. Until I tried pressing in on a small dip in the metal.

Something swung open, whacking me on the knee again, and making a horrific noise, as the rest of the cabinet became see able once more. It was exactly like a normal cabinet, only, all the draws had disappeared, and in their place was a door. A secret passage, of course! I mentally hit myself on the forehead. If time hadn't been paused, then whoever was down there, would've heard the noise that the door had made against my knee, and either come up and caught me, or ran off out a different way.

I looked inside. A step flight of spiral stairs ran down out of sight, every ten metres or so there was a small light on the wall. This passageway was clearly underneath the building. I started down them, pausing only to wonder weather or not to leave the door open (in the end I did), anticipation and nerves making knots in my stomach.

It seemed to take a life time to get to the bottom of the stairs, but no time had passed at all, which kinda sucked and kinda didn't. As I rounded the last corner, a large, crowded room came into view. It was very bright in the room, and I had to shade my eyes for several minutes while they adjusted to the sudden light change, but when I could finally see again, I nearly gasped out loud.

The room had several other corridors leading out of it. At the front of the room, there was a massive projected screen, and a tall English man in a suit who was wearing glasses and clutching a clipboard to his chest. Poor sap, I thought, must be terrified.

Around thirty or forty different people were all sitting around a big table in the middle of the room. It looked as thought there was a person from every country in the world. Tie-Cho was there, and so, of course, were Sinel and Lesley.

Other than them, there was a tall French man with a moustache, a Swedish man in a fancy suit, the smart effect ruined by a woolly hat that covered his ears, a German man wearing military uniform. There were lots more people, but I can't be bothered to describe the all; it'd take about a year.

I looked around the room for a hiding place. There were all sorts of things around the edges of the room, but none of them big enough for me to hind in. I glanced upwards, and grinned. There was a massive chandelier attached to the ceiling, but just above that was a circular hole, where the rope that held up the chandelier came from, just large enough for me to squeeze through. Once I was up there, I could look down through it and into the room, whilst remaining virtually undetectable.

I climbed up on to the table, and grabbed a light that was dangling in front of me. It _looked_ strong enough to hold me. I tugged at it slightly, feeling its strength, then hauled myself up with it. It was a very good thing that my school had made us practice climbing up ropes in PE, because otherwise, I would have found this impossible. Eventually, I wriggled through the hole in the ceiling, praying that there would be enough space in there for me.

There was. It was a tiny room, with a cushioned floor, and cupboards that opened up into little windows, which looked into other rooms. This place must have been used for one person to monitor everything, and make sure no one could sneak in, out, shoot someone, or anything else.

Well, I'd have a good view of what was going on then. I settled down, leaning forward, over the hole, and whispered, "Time, I, the only person who can control you, demand you to continue,"

All at once, everyone started yelling, finishing off their sentences, which had been cut off when I'd paused time.

"- lost to many of them!" Screamed a Spanish man.

"-Lockhore is getting stronger!" Shouted the German soldier guy.

"- can we succeed? We need more!" A Scottish man yelped.

"SILENCE!" Yelled Sinel, who was standing at the top of the table, all sinister looking. "We are no' doomed yet, I 'ave a plan. But firs'!" He declared, as quiet fell, "I wan' to 'ear you're reports. We may be able to solve a few o' our smaller problems, which, in turn, can help us solve this problem. Starched, you ca' go firs'." He pointed to the Scottish man, who stood up nervously, holding a stack of papers in his hands.

"Thank ya, Sinel." He muttered, sounding anything but grateful. "O'er the past year, we 'ave detected fifteen new Zytons. Unfortunately, Lockhore 'as managed to get 'is filthy 'ands on eight o' them." He glanced nervously at Sinel, but carried on. "We 'ave 'ad ten Zytons escape fro' our campus, an' only one o' them didn't get away. He is being kept in away fro' everyone else. Lockhore is getting stronger by tha minute. Bu' the wors' of it is tha' we 'ave started to suspect tha' we 'ave a spy in our camp!" The Scottish man announced, before sitting down, and glancing at Sinel again.

"Well… tha' is a spot o' bother. Never mind. How is training going in you're campus? Any particularly strong ones?" Sinel asked. The Scottish man looked relieved that he finally had some good news.

"We 'ave found a very strong boy, who can create hurricanes, an' a wee lass who can breathe fire. We kidnapped another boy, who we think is a potential mind reader."

"Good, good. Thank you, Starched. Ories, you next,"

A fat American stood up.

"Thanks," He nodded to Sinel, his three double chins wobbling madly. "We have recruited twenty nine new Zytons, and Lockhore only got his hands on ten others, which is better than last time, when he got over half of them. Like Starched, we have had several escape attempts, and only one lot, a group of six, got away. We do not suspect any spies, and overall, we are doing quite well. Only one of our recruits is suspected of serious power, a girl, who can turn herself invisible, as well as other people." He concluded.

Sinel nodded, then pointed at the German man, "You next," He said.

And so it went on, and on, and on, until eventually, every last person (apart from Sinel, Lesley and Tie-Cho) had given a report. Most of the people reported that Lockhore had taken just under half of the new Zytons, and that four or five Zytons had escaped. I wondered who Lockhore was, and I was starting to wonder if these were actually the good guys.

When the last person had finished her report, Sinel stood up. "We have many problems, but before we attend to them, let us eat!" And he led them out of the room. I frowned; I hadn't thought about lunch yet, but now that I was, I realised I was starving. I debated for a moment, then froze time, jumped down from my hiding place, and followed all of the people into the other room.

The room was full of tables that were heaving with food. I looked back at Sinel, who was leading all the guests through, paused by the door. It would definitely make him suspicious if a whole tonne of food went missing from a table, right in front of his eyes.

All around the room, there were pillars, and there were tables behind them, since otherwise there wouldn't be enough space. I went to the back of the room, to a table behind the pillars, where no one would notice any food missing straight away.

It was buffet, I guess, since there was about five of everything on each table. I grabbed a small piece of bread, a few strawberries out of each bowl, and a napkin that was tucked underneath the bread in the bread basket. I wrapped the bread and strawberries in it, then went to the next table, where I took a massive, rosy red apple and a small piece of still-warm flapjack. I just had enough space in my napkin for several slices of cheese and ham.

Once I had collected what I needed, I went back to my hiding place, and unfroze time. By the time I had finished my odd meal, all of the guests had just started eating. It took them a long time to sit down, I though, as I watched them through the little window in my hiding place. When the meeting finally recommenced, two and a half hours later, I was incredibly bored, and had had a small nap, and several severe cramps.

"So!" Sinel said as he stood up, "You 'ave told us all about the bad stuff, an' a little about the good stuff. Lockhore is more powerful than ever. Lots of Zytons are trying to escape fro' us. Some people suspect spies in their camps." He ticked them off on his fingers. "We now 'ave jus' over three hundred Zytons in our power, which is good, bu', now, I'll tell you some even better news. We can still rule the world, if we 'ave what I posses." I didn't like the sound of that. Rule the world? Was he mad? "We 'ave located _four, _new, powerful Zytons. We are still working with three o' them, bu' the fourth one, we 'ave cracked. He can stop time, an' he has precognition."

There were several gasps. I frowned, that sounded like it was me they were talking about. Well, I wasn't about to help them rule the world under any circumstances.

"These four, do they know what we plan to do with them?" Asked a tall Australian.

"Three of them we had to take by force, but the fourth, the time stopper, knows nothing about our plans for him."

You got that wrong! I yelled at him in my head.

"He believed that rubbish about the government?" The American, Ories, asked in disbelief.

"Yes, Tie-Cho has done this plenty of times, and it was no different with the boy, than with any of the others."

Charming, I thought, they fed me a bunch of lies that made me think that it was the government that was bad, when the government probably didn't have anything to do with this. Well, if they thought I was gonna be played around with them anymore, they could go get stuffed! I'm gonna leave this hell-hole and never come back! And rescue Erin, Jam and Fire from these dudes too!

I thought about this Lockhore guy, and wandered if I would be able to find him. If he was the enemy of these guys, then he must be the good guy, right?

"Tell me more about the four new Zytons," The Spanish bloke demanded.

"There are two girls and two boys," Lesley told everyone, after a nod from Sinel, "We acquired them all recently, just this week in fact. They are the most powerful we have ever seen. I myself went to capture three of them."

Hang on a minute! Lesley was there when we kidnapped Jam, Fire and Erin. And we got them just yesterday! I came here just a few days ago, so that fitted. And, if Jam was the other boy, that _would _make it two boys and two girls. They were the other three Zytons that Sinel and Lesley were planning to use!

Everyone looked impressed, and relieved, by the plan to use us. Jerks.

"Is there anything else to be said?" Sinel asked.

Everyone shook their head.

"Good, then I declare this meeting officially over!" He said, and everyone stood up and walked down one of the corridors. Within a minute, the only ones in the room were Sinel and Lesley.

"So," Lesley asked, sitting down opposite Sinel, "How _are_ they getting on?"

Sinel grimaced, "Erin has already tried escaping once, had the whole security running round trying to catch her," I grinned; if I couldn't make his life difficult right now, at least Erin could.

Lesley grimaced too, "So what did you do?"

I stopped smirking. What _had_ he done to her?

"Knocked her out, installed hidden cameras in the room so we know her every single move, and remembered to lock the door."

I sighed in relief; he hadn't decided to starve Erin to death or something drastic.

"She's already tried to open the door; did it the moment I left the room. She's taken to annoying the hell out of me, since she can't embarrass me by nearly escaping the minute she wakes up. I plan to keep her asleep most of the time."

Lesley nodded, then asked, "And the others?"

"I decided against putting them together. Only the boy hasn't tried to escape yet, we stopped the other girl before she got far. I'm gonna tell them about Zyton's later today, and then get Tie-Cho to visit them tomorrow."

"Great," Lesley nodded, and the two of them got up.

OK, maybe I'm a little slow, but it wasn't until they were ten metres up the stairs before I realised that they would probably shut the door on the way out and lock me in, or find the door open, come down and find me. I froze time, and jumped to my feet.

Climbing the stairs seemed to take even longer than last time, but, just like last time, it hadn't taken a single second. I gently closed the cabinet door behind me, and ran all the way back to my room, passing Tie-Cho, who was climbing down the stairs on floor four. I lay on the bed and murmured, "Time, I, the only person who can control you, demand you to continue,"

A butterfly flew past my window.

I sighed, thinking over everything I'd heard down in the secret room.

Sinel was the bad guy. Erin, Fire, Jam and I were supposedly the most powerful Zytons ever. Sinel wanted to use us all to take over the world. A guy called Lockhore was there deadly enemy. If Lockhore was Sinel's enemy, then he was my friend.

I have to get all of us out of here, I thought, before it's too late.


	15. Chapter 14

Erin's Pov

Please review! Hope you enjoy it!

* * *

When I woke up, I had the feeling that I'd been asleep a long time. I blinked once or twice, taking in my surroundings.

I was in a small bedroom that had an en-suite in one corner. All the walls were white, so that when the sun shone through the little window near the ceiling, the whole room got lit up.

I was in a bed. The white, smooth sheets felt calming against my feverish skin. I looked down at myself, taking in all the scratches; I was wearing some kind of nightgown, like one of those really old fashioned long ones. I lay back down, wondering where I was.

A woman came into the room. "Erin Laurel?" She asked me.

I nodded, rubbing my eyes and trying to sit up. The woman pushed me back down.

"Save your energy for later, OK?" She told me.

I wasn't quite sure what she meant by, "for later," but I honestly felt too tired to care.

"Where am I?" I asked, thinking back. Everything felt sluggish. I remembered going home from school. I'd been nervous about something. Jam and Fire had been with me, of course. I frowned, then added, "Where's Jam and Fire?"

The woman smiled, and patted me on the shoulder, but, I noticed, didn't answer my questions.

"You just go back to sleep, and try to feel better," She told me.

Well, I could do that; I was worn out. Only, I couldn't help feeling that I was forgetting something. Something incredibly obvious. I pushed it to the back of my mind, and settled back into the pillows. I was almost asleep when I remembered something else. I jolted upright, causing the woman, who had been about to go, to turn around and come back.

"Everything all right dear?" She asked.

I didn't answer. I could remember a face. It was that incredibly hot guy. But where had I seen him? I thought harder. I'd been yelling, and kicking and scratching someone, for some reason, and I'd seen him, then… and then… I digged deep into my memories… he'd flickered and gone out like a ghost, or a candle, or something. I frowned. Why had I been attacking someone?

And _then_ I remembered everything. I gasped, and tried to get out of bed, but the woman pushed me back. I panicked. They'd caught me! I felt trapped, claustrophobic, even, which was pushing it slightly, since I'd never been claustrophobic before. Then again, I'd never been kidnapped before; there's a first for everything! I tried to get back up again, but the woman pressed me down. I could feel myself shaking. What had happened to Jam and Fire, once they'd been caught?

"Get off me," I moaned, trying to push the woman off, I had to get away, to find the others and get away. "Get off!" I shoved more forcefully this time.

The hand moved away, and I jumped to my feet, staggering towards the door.

Unfortunately, the door opened before I got there, and Scar Dude came in. I screamed, backing away from him into the wall. He nodded at the woman, some signal, or something, then looked towards me.

"Nice to meet you, Erin," He said, trying to distract me from the woman. It was working slightly, having spent so much time asleep was seriously not helping me focus. I glanced at the woman wearily, then asked, "Who are you? Let me go!"

Scar Dude smiled. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Erin,"

I frowned. Usually in the movie's, the kidnapped super agent would say something really clever back, and make the bad guy embarrassed, but I honestly couldn't think of anything more witty, than; Escape! So I tried that.

I dived past Scar Dude, grabbing the door handle and pulling it open. I ran out into the corridor, trying to find Jam and Fire, Scar Dude yelling for security behind me.

The corridor was all weird; all of the rooms were on the inside of the building, so you couldn't get any widows installed or anything, but the corridors ran around the outside, and there were widows every five feet.

I burst into a room down the corridor. Empty. I tried another room. Again, empty. I glanced back, to see a whole tonne of burly men running straight for me, and gave up looking.

I ran down the corridor to a corner, and pelted round it, to the middle, where a flight of stairs led down. I pelted down them, the security people metres behind me. When I got to the bottom, to my horror, I found that the security guards had split up, and some were already waiting for me.

They grabbed me, ignoring my kicking and yelling, and pulled me upstairs, still screaming my head off, and, you know what? None of them even thought to shut me up, which was quite selfish of them, since I was probably ruining someone's day with all of this screaming.

Anyway, they finally got me in front of Scar Dude, who listened to my shouting and cussing for a whole minute before nodding to one of the guards. The guard brought out a needle (I was really beginning to hate them) and jabbed me with it. I tried to move away from it, but about ten security guards were holding on to each arm. The sudden numbness came almost instantly, and I collapsed into one of the men. I remember being carried back to the room I'd been in before, still fighting the sleepiness, I remember feeling as if my head weighed the same as an average truck, and I remember the Scar Dude smiling grimly at me. Then I passed out.

The next time I awoke, it was dark outside, and the lights were on, positively blinding me for about half a minute. When my eyes adjusted enough for me to be able to squint, I saw Scar Dude was already in the room, watching me. I sat up and glanced around the room. There didn't seem to be anything different about it. I frowned, was this it? I had tried to escape and gotten a whole floor down, and all they'd done was make Scar Dude move in permanently. Honestly? I was expecting something more… I don't know, more, like a cage, you know? More… evil? Horrific? Demented?

"I see you're awake," Scar Dude commented.

"Give the guy a clap everyone, he's discovered he has eyes!" I said sarcastically.

"Ha ha, I'm laughing my head off, so funny. Now SHUT IT!" He practically yelled at me.

"Whoa! Calm down, dude," I muttered.

I swear I could see steam coming out of his ears.

"I'm here to tell you something important," He snapped. "Not because I want to and not because I need to. Bu' because once I 'ave, I can use you and you're friends to rule the world! So you're going to listen!"

"Menacing bad guy moment," I said with mock assurance, not taking him seriously at all, "It'll pass in a minute or two. Until then, don't try to say something to ambitious, I might have to hold you to you're word. Oh. Wait. You already did. Oops."

Scar Dude growled in my ear. "I. Said. LISTEN."

"I really think you need a holiday, you know." I stared at him, trying to think of a place he might like, "Tokyo maybe. No, too… too far away. Norway! That's nearer. No, that's too cold. I know! France! It's perfect. Nice and warm, great monuments to visit, romantic hot spot- you really need to get a life outside of here."

Scar Dude glared at me then continued on his rant about world dominance. This went on for at least an hour. I didn't really listen to most of it, only the end, when he mentioned me, Jam and Fire.

"Um… Dude? Powers? What the heck?" I asked when he started on about our 'amazing' powers that were 'the strongest in a million years'. Personally, I thought he was slightly cuckoo, but, actually, as I found out later, he was completely right.

Of course, Scar Dude did not answer a single one of my questions, and the minute he was done with the whole 'you are a Zyton' thing, he went straight out.

"That dude has lost it. Majorly." I said, hoping that he would hear, and get annoyed with me. He didn't.

I glanced around the room, checking. There were no cameras, no chains, and no traps, nothing to stop me from getting out! I stood up, and walked to the door. Nothing happened. I frowned; this was too easy. I looked at the door handle, trying to see if it was wired or something. It wasn't. I grabbed it and pulled. Nothing happened. I pulled again and nothing happened. I rattled the door. Locked.

This was slightly embarrassing. Defeated by a locked door.

I went back over to my bed and sat down on it, wondering if there was any way to break down the door. Probably not. The windows were too high up and way too small for me to be able to slip through them. In other words I was trapped.

I may as well think about what the weirdo said, I thought. So he had said something about me, Jam and Fire being Zytons, having 'powers' and another something about us helping him rule the world. Translation; that man has gone nutty, which brings me back to my first conclusion.

But… what if all that stuff he'd told me was true. What if I really was a Zyton? What would happen then?

The door opened. I leaped up. The woman came through, turned around and locked the door before I was halfway across the room.

I scowled and sat back on the bed, as the woman came forward with a tray of food for me. It was a different woman than from before, older, more grey hair and wrinkles.

"I thought you might be hungry," she said, placing the tray on my lap.

I glanced down at it, and realised that it was tomato soup and a massive hunk of bread to dip in. It smelt delicious, and my stomach growled hungrily in anticipation. I liked the bowl clean. Literally. Only then did I start to feel weird. My eyes span madly out of focus, and I fell back against the pillows, crying out. It was the food! I realised as my eyelids began to droop. The food was drugged! I saw vaguely, the old woman smiling at me and pulling the covers over me. My whole head was spinning now, and every thought came slower and slower. Then stopped coming. I passed out. Again.


	16. Chapter 15

Dylan's POV!

Please review!

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I started to feel really tried, and with good reason too, climbing more than ten flights of stairs after being cooped up in a small room wasn't the best way for keeping energised. I checked my watch, two o'clock. I may as well sort out my room, I thought, heading over to my ever-growing pile of dirty washing.

Once I'd started the washer, I set about tidying my room. If I was going to escape soon, then there really wasn't much point in unpacking, but I had nothing better to do, so I figured I'd unpack anyway.

I decided to have another look around campus, since I hadn't really seen all that much.

It was cloudy and looked as if it was about to rain, so there was no one around and I could do whatever the hell I wanted to.

All the buildings in Campus are really spaced out, but the main ones surround a stretch of tarmac that is mostly used for a car park. I went into the building next to sleeping/eating building. It was a shop. I looked around it, there were maps for walking and cycling- don't ask me why, since no one really knows where we are, and, apart from 'collecting' missions, no one leaves the campus- a snack bar, which I spent several minutes staring at, the whole of the back of the shop had been devoted to food and water, so you didn't have to go to the cafeteria or get room service if you didn't want to. You could buy new clothes and trainers, or get a laptop or CD player. The shop sold practically everything.

I realised that I hadn't got any money with me, since it was all in my bank account, and I didn't have a card to get money out because I'd known I'd only spend all of my money, or loose the card.

I didn't really resort to stealing when I didn't have money, I'd just tough it out, or borrow some money off a friend, but I really wanted to make Sinel annoyed, so for those of you who object, let's just say I was borrowing a few things permanently. I focused on my images and froze time.

First things first, I thought, and headed straight to the snack bar. Sure, it was literally just after lunch, sure, I'd probably only be able to manage half of the stuff, but who cares? The shopkeeper might.

I ate around two sugared doughnuts, three flapjacks and a packet of milk chocolate cookies before I did anything else, so by the time I had finished, I felt massively bloated, and absolutely positive that I wouldn't be able to manage tea. Shame, really, it was curry tonight.

I went over to the clothes part, and grabbed several pairs of tatty jeans; a black denim jacket; three random t-shirts and a pair of croc wellies (don't ask me why, I just felt like getting them). I also got a nice thick coat, since it was the middle of winter, and it was quite cold out. I stuffed all of the clothes into a basket that had been left, deserted, on the rack next to the clothes, then went over to the back of the shop, where the food isle was. Since I was going to escape in the middle of winter, I may as well take some food I thought, and grabbed several cans of a shelf, along with a can opener.

I grinned. It was probably just making me a bad person, all this stealing, but if I was stealing from the bad guys, then it wasn't all that bad. I guess you could call me Karma. On my way out, I spotted a selection of backpacks. I walked over and chose the most expensive one I could find, shoved everything inside and walked out of the shop.

I realised that I really couldn't be bothered to go back to my room just yet, so I turned and headed in a completely different direction; toward the building that we'd dropped Erin and her friends off at yesterday.

I wasn't going to do anything, just scout the building and try to form some sort of plan- the sort of thing I suck at.

It was about half a mile to the building that Erin was in, and by the time I'd got there, I was freezing. I left my backpack on the floor, climbed the wall surrounding the building, and sat at the top to get a good view. Did I mention that I'm great at climbing? No? Well, now you know. There were four different floors, and the stair case was right in the middle of the building, since I couldn't see it anywhere, even when I'd walked- on the wall- all the way round the building, and the corridor seemed to go all the way around the outside of the building, so that all the rooms were in the middle, which was stupid, since then, if you were in a room behind the stairs, you'd have to walk all the way round the corridor to get to the stairs. Come to think of it, a lot of things were badly designed. Why did you want windows on the corridor, if you could have had them in you're room?

Then I remembered. This place was designed to keep people in. I frowned. The windows didn't make sense at all then!

I judged the distance between the wall and the building, curious to see if I would be able to climb the up on to the roof. I was about level with the third floor, but the jump was about a metre and a half. I frowned, then shrugged, leapt forward, and grabbed on to the loose brick I'd spotted, which was jutting out of the side of the building.

I heaved myself up, until I felt that I was secure enough to take one of my hands off and search for something else to grab onto.

It must have been around twenty minutes later- yes, I know, no time has actually passed- when I finally collapsed in a heap on the floor, my arms aching all over.

I looked around and was amazed to find a little garden, in the middle of the roof. I mean, seriously? They have all these big, boring buildings, and then they decide to randomly plonk a cute little garden, that even has one of those swing/chair thingies in, on top of one of them!

The idea was rather comical.

I walked over to it, rubbing on my sore arms. There was a small fence going round the outside, and a small umbrella stand, with no umbrella in it. I sat down wearily on the bench/swing thing, and relaxed, as the wind rocked it backwards and forwards.

I glanced around the rest of the small garden, and saw a small opening into the building, where the steps probably were. Well, at least I had a way of getting into the building without- hopefully- getting caught.

Unless I froze time, which would suck, because how was I going to be able to drag three frozen teenagers down a whole tonne of stairs, a long way away from this place, and then expect them to escape with me.

I sighed, feeling that there was no way I was gonna be able to climb back down again (and cursing myself internally for not just walking through the door, even if I wouldn't have been able to get a good look at the place) I headed down the stairs and into the building.

I spent a few minutes checking out each floor, and trying to memorize the way around the building, before going outside, collecting my backpack, and heading back to my room for a well-deserved nap.

It was half five in the morning when I woke up, still entirely exhausted, and I cursed myself for not being able to sleep in 'til eleven every day. I groaned and sat up, stretching my arms and yawning. I looked out the window to see a thick blanket of snow covering everything, and groaned internally, thinking, nice time of year you picked to escape, what a genius idea Dylan! You'll freeze before you've spent a single night on the run. I climbed out of bed, and got changed, then glanced around my room. It was a lot tidier now, since I'd spent a while Yesterday cleaning it all up, but I didn't want to spend the day outside, if it was going to be all snowy. I'm not all to keen on the whole wet, cold and horrible. Snow fights I could do, but not trudging around in it aimlessly.

Well then, I thought, grabbing my backpack, if I really am going to escape, I may as well be prepared. And set to work getting all the stuff I would need for my journey.

It took less time than I expected to get all of my warm clothes and spare clothes, food, a sleeping bag, two extra blankets, and my cheap waterproof tent that I'd brought when I was younger. Of course, it was a camping backpack thing- even if it was smaller than the usual ones- so that didn't surprise me much. Did I mention it was a camping/hiking/outdoor thingy backpack?

I slipped it under the bed, where no one could see it, the sat down and grimaced. I'd expected it to take the whole of maybe an hour and a half, and then I would've gone down to breakfast, but it'd only taken about fifteen minutes.

Well, may as well do some research then, I thought to myself, pulling open the door to my room and walking out. A short walk down the stairs brought me to a library. I went over to the computer and switched it on. While it loaded, I tapped my fingers on the desk and looked around nervously.

The computer finally booted up and I quickly pulled up Google. I looked up Sinel first, and about seven million hits came up. I sighed, and started rummaging through them. Half an hour later, the only things I'd learnt about Sinel was that he had been a straight A student at a college in the middle of nowhere- if that was even the right person- and he'd had a lot of trouble with the police. I figured out pretty quickly that this wasn't really working, but ploughed on, searching for Lesley, Lockhore, Tie-Cho, and –'cos it was the only other name I could remember- Ranmond.

Lesley was quite popular, with over fifteen million hits, but Ranmond was the opposite, coming up with about five different Chinese and Japanese websites. I was really surprised when the same thing happened with Tie-Cho. Not!

Lockhore was easy. Well, kinda, but once I'd shifted through all the other junk, I came to this high security website. I cussed. Sure, I can climb walls, freeze time, see the future- and possibly the past- but I did not do hacking into stuff. I guess brains aren't really my style. I sighed again and typed in endless passwords, and, to my amazement, it worked! But I couldn't believe that they'd actually chosen that password. I mean, who do you know that uses their worst enemy's name as their password? Maybe that's why, I thought after a minute, 'cos no one would ever think of it, I mean, I was only doing it for a laugh. I shrugged, and started reading.

You know, having a top secret website, with a password lock thing on it to stop people reading it, you'd think you might put more on it than old school records. I mean sure, it has his criminal record, what he studied, and a small time-line of his life, but it told me practically _nothing _about Sinel, or Zytons, or anything that might have been useful. The only useful thing I found, was his address, phone number, work address and work phone number. I scribbled them down using a pen from the desk and stuffed them into my pocket. Then, just to be cautious, I deleted my history, switched off the computer again, and hurried out of the library. On the way out, I looked at my watch and scowled.

Only six forty-five. Damn it! Did time deliberately go this slow?

I was so busy being annoyed, that I didn't notice the quiet murmuring coming from one of the rooms down the corridor, nor that I had reached the stairs, so when I tried to step forward, I tripped and fell hard on my left side, permanently bruising my elbow and making a loud thud against the wall.

I only noticed the murmuring because it stopped. The silence was eerie, and, as I picked myself up, not caring that I was still cussing, even if it was quietly, I got kinda creeped out.

Suddenly, a door burst open next to me, and two men ran over to me, grabbing me and covering my mouth so I couldn't make a noise.

What the-? I thought, as they dragged me inside. I tried to bite the guys hand but it didn't work. I kicked and thrashed and tried to break free. Who were these loonies?


	17. Chapter 16

I'm really sorry I haven't posted in ages, but my laptop broke and it had all the stuff from my story on it, so I couldn't do anymore on my story :(

luck for me, i got a new laptop for christmas! yay me! :P

Here's my next chapter, from Erin's Pov!

* * *

I'm really not sure that all this passing out is good for me, I thought groggily, forcing my eyes open. My head was still spinning, and my body felt stiff and uncomfortable. I pulled myself into what vaguely resembled a sitting position, and looked around. Light shone through the window, making my skin feel warmer and the room more welcoming. I guessed it was about eight o'clock. Scar Dude was there, just like before, only this time, he had a friend. A short stubby man, with a brown goatee beard, and long shoulder-length hair that was red- and so obviously dyed- was standing next to him. He looked Chinese, and was wearing a white shirt and bow tie, to go with his long black, brown socks, and black shoes. Honestly. Some people just don't get the whole brown-socks-and-black-shoes-DO-NOT-GO-TOGETHER!

I scowled at them both, making it as obvious as possibly that I didn't enjoy seeing either of them.

"Hey, there's this thing called privacy, either of you heard about it?" I growled, trying to sort out my seriously untidy hair, and failing miserably.

"Good to see you again, Erin," Sinel said mockingly.

"Go trip down some stairs and break your neck," I snarled back.

"Yes, I've 'ad a very enjoyable morning, thank you for asking, and now, I'd like to introduce you to a friend," He told me, remaining polite, and gestured to the guy beside him.

The guy stepped forward and said in a quite but powerful voice, "Tie-Cho welcomes you here. Tie-Cho will teach you how to use your powers for the greater good!"

"Uh… right, if using my powers is for the greater good, then you must be the Easter Bunny in disguise." I muttered sarcastically.

"Tie-Cho does not lie," Tie-Cho intoned.

"Well, you just did!" I snapped.

"But Tie-Cho said-"

"I couldn't care less what Tie-Cho said!" I interrupted him, "The truth is that you want to use me to take over the world, as well as Jam and Fire, and the other truth is that it's never going to happen!"

"Now now, Erin, don't be so quick to jump to conclusions," Sinel scolded me.

"I thought you were supposed to be at the bottom of some stairs dying." I scowled at him.

"Ouch. Anyway, back to business. Erin, Tie-Cho is gonna to teach you 'ow to use you're powers today, an' you're gonna do what he says, or else," Sinel said menacingly, before turning around and storming out of the door.

"I'm quaking in my socks!" I yelled after him, "In fact, your threat positively terrifies me!"

No reply. Maybe he didn't hear. Bummer.

Tie-Cho sat down on the floor opposite me, and told me to sit in a comfortable position, close my eyes and empty my mind, so I lay back on my bed and wondered if I could get away with sleeping through this.

"Now," Tie-Cho said after a minute of silence, "Tie-Cho wants you to choose two very special memories that you have, only one must be of when you have been very nervous, and the other of when you have been very relaxed. Bring the memories to the front of your mind, and think very hard about them, try to memorise them, try to re-live them,"

After a minute of deliberation, I chose yesterday (or whenever, since I could have been knocked out for four days or something) when Jam, Fire, and I had been forced into walking home, even when we knew that we were going to get ambushed, for the incredibly nervous memory, and messing around with Jam and Fire a few days ago, for my relaxed one.

I tried to remember the way my stomach had fluttered sickeningly with nerves as I'd walked down the streets back home, or the way I had laughed so hard I'd snorted when Jam had tripped over a sticky out piece of carpet, and landed flat on is face, in the middle of a massive pile of dirty washing.

Very slowly, I felt the world around me slip away, I could no longer feel the bed beneath me, or hear the slow, paced breathing of Tie-Cho. I opened my eyes in confusion, and gasped. I was in a massive space, but, at the same time, I was cramped and curled up in a tiny hole. I felt as if I was nowhere, but everywhere, in every single place in the universe, but not in any of those places at all, as if I was looking down on it from above. Only, there wasn't anything to see, only whiteness all around me. It was actually making me feel rather dizzy.

Suddenly, I thought about Fire, wondering weather she'd believe me, if I told her. I spotted a small flicker of light appear out of nowhere, and leaned in close to see what it was. The light flew around in front of me, getting so bright I had to close my eyes. When I opened them, I could still see the room around me, but right in front of me, was Fire. She was lying in a bed like mine, in a room that was very similar to mine, looking incredibly bored. A really weird feeling came over me then, 'cos I could only see Fire, but somehow, I knew where the room she was in was. It was just two flights down from me, on the left of a bright green sofa, opposite the stairs.

Cool! I thought, this is my 'power' I can sense where people are!

But even as I thought it, I knew that I could do much more. I focused my thoughts on Tie-Cho, and, sure enough, a tiny blob of light appeared before me, but, rather than let it whiz around me, I pulled out my imaginary baseball bat, and thwacked the blob as hard as I could, thinking all the time of Hawaii. The light flickered out, and I smiled with pleasure, sensing that Tie-Cho was not anywhere near me.

Now, I thought, how to get back to my body. As soon as I thought of myself, I knew where I was, well, roughly speaking, I didn't know what city or whatever, but if I was showed a map, I would be able to point out where we were immediately. I was on the top floor of a building to one side of some sort of campus. Somewhere Northeast of London. I focused on myself, until a picture of me, lying, eyes closed, on my bed appeared. I frowned, wasn't there supposed to be a blob instead? Oh well, I thought, as I jumped into the picture, maybe it works different for me.

I sat up, and gasped. I had done it! I looked towards the door and sighed. It was a shame that the keys had run off to Hawaii _before_ they'd opened the door.

Suddenly, a man burst through the door, and yelled at me, "Where is he? Where did he go?"

Hmmm… maybe they did have security cameras in the room. I wondered weather I should take pity on the guy and tell him, or just blast him off to Hawaii so he could see it for himself. I decided to go for the first one, since Sinel would probably kill me if I sent _all_ of his staff to Hawaii.

"He decided to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii," I told the man, "Ran off with the keys to my room too!"

"But… that's impossible!" He spluttered, "He just disappeared! He… He… just vanished!"

I laughed inside at his astounded face.

"You said it was urgent?" Sinel asked the man as he waltzed into the room.

"Yes… I… I… Tie-Cho" The man stuttered.

"Yes, I noticed he 'ad run off rather quickly, where did he go?" Sinel asked curiously.

The man pointed at me, but didn't say anything. I decided to speak up.

"The magazine he was reading was offering an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii, so he went to get the tickets." I frowned, then added, "Only, it was just the way there that was free,"

Hint. Hint. Hint. I was _sooo_ not going to help Sinel get Tie-Cho back.

"Hmmm… tha' is very unusual," Sinel muttered, "Since Tie-Cho hates all hot places, an' he didn' 'ave a magazine with 'im when he came in...""

"Yes," I agreed coolly, "Very unusual indeed,"

Sinel scowled, as if he had hoped that he would have caught me out. He dismissed the man, and the two of them walked out of the room. I stuck my tongue out behind his back.

They'd better catch that on the security tape.

I flopped back on the bed, grinning. Score one for Erin!

I'd expected someone to come and drug me, or something, but nothing happened, no one came, so, all in all, I was very bored.

I started thinking about the boy I'd seen.

Who was he? Was he actually a boy, I mean, he flickered and disappeared just seconds after I saw him, so was he a ghost? Well, he was still really cute.

I frowned to myself. Shouldn't I be working out some sort of plan of escape, rather than thinking of some hot guy who may be a ghost, and that I'm probably never going to see again in my life? It was kinda depressing that that thought made my insides shrivel up in grief.

I shook off my desperate thoughts of boys, and started to think.

Unfortunately for me my concentration span had shrunk from low to very low, so by the time Sinel arrived back to question me again, I'd thought of about three escape-related sentences, which were; if I could zap us all out of here, then everything would be fine. Then, but what if I can't? And finally, I'll figure something out later.

Wow. Busy day for my mind. Not.

Of course, Sinel wasn't at all in a good mood when he stomped into my room, slamming the door behind him and stomping up to me like a child who's in the middle of a fully fledged hissy fit.

"Wow. You look really grumpy, I wish I could congratulate whoever put that look on your face," I told him cheerfully.

"Well, you're just in look, since I know who did it!" Sinel growled at me, glaring in a way that might just have suggested that he thought it was me. Well… when I say thought, what I really meant was he was absolutely positive.

I grinned mischievously, then reached out and patted his arm, "Don't be too hard on whoever did it. Who knows, maybe they did it as a practical joke. Or so they could get back at you. Or because they think Tie-Cho is annoying. There are many different reasons,"

I saw Sinel clench his fists and literally start growling, and I couldn't stand it any more. I cracked up laughing. Maybe I should've been scared, since Sinel is, like, the big cheese- in several different ways- of this place, and a very powerful man, and also a very powerful Zyton- and, no, I still do not believe the whole 'you are a Zyton thingy, I'm just accepting it temporarily, adapting to the circumstances, you know? - But I wasn't even worried that I had just beeped him off.

Then Sinel had to ruin the party. "Well, since we now know your power, we can start using it against others. I can think of several different ways tha' you could come in useful."

I froze, stopping mid laugh (which totally sounded weird), "Uh uh. I am not helping you. Not in anything. No way. Never,"

"Not even if your friend's lives depend on it?" At least my brain _finally_ had some decent come-backs.

"Um… dude? I can teleport Fire and Jam away at any moment, so, how exactly is that threat gonna work out? Huh?"

Sinel smiled grimly "But you can't teleport people unless you know where they are,"

He doesn't know, I thought, He doesn't know that I can sense people. I opened my mouth to boast. Then shut it. Any unknown power that I had was an advantage, right?

Sinel obviously thought he'd got me, and smirked, "Tie-Cho should be back tomorrow, and then, we'll start,"

"Hmmm… I still think you'd like that holiday in France. I can still get you there and back for free… though I might just leave you there to do your evil plotting…" I joked/threatened.

Sinel looked at me furiously, "No more teleporting my staff! Or else!"

I frowned at him, "Boring! Could you have at least come up with something half way threatening? I mean, or else? What kind of threat is that? Blah, blah, Take-over-the-world, blah! Is that all you're good at, making empty threats and useless attempts to take over the world?" This guy was getting old fast.

Sinel growled and stomped out of the room, locking the door behind him. He didn't even give me a chance to taunt him about France.


	18. Chapter 17

Dylan's POV

* * *

As I got dragged into the room, I could see another man, and three women, and they were all staring at me in disgust.

The tall muscular man, who was already in the room pointed towards the bed, and the two men hauled me over to it and forced me to sit, standing round me to stop me from escaping. They all looked towards the man again, who was obviously the leader.

"How much of our conversation did you hear, child?" He growled at me.

The man next to me slowly peeled back his hand from my mouth, but whispered, "Scream, and we'll kill you,"

Kill me! Were they serious? Maybe they were bluffing. I gulped, then turned to the leader guy, "I didn't hear any of it, I was walking along the corridor, and I wasn't looking where I was going, so I tripped on the stairs,"

I wasn't exactly gonna tell them that I had been trying to find out about this place's enemy, 'cos I wanted to escape and join them, was I?

"If you are telling the truth," The man said, pacing up and down the room, "And you didn't hear our conversation, then, why?" He asked turning to face me. "Were you up at this time in the morning?"

I gulped, and muttered, "Pass?"

The man scowled, and looked even more disgusted; the women huddled closer together, looking worried. "This is no joke, son! Tell us who you are spying for!" He leaned in close to my face, growling every word, and generally being as intimidating as possible. "Is it Sinel?" He spat, "Or Lesley. Maybe its Tie-Cho, I heard he had spies."

Hang on a minute! "You think I'm spying for them?" I asked incredulously.

Everyone stared at me. "You mean you're not?" One of the guys asked.

Why were they all having a meeting in this room, in the early morning when hardly anyone was awake? Unless… maybe _they_ were spies. I frowned.

"No! I'm not! Why would I want to spy for them?"

The man scowled. "If you're not a spy, then what were you doing?" He asked.

I decided to take a risk.

"I'm planning to escape." I told them, "I was in the library looking up a guy called Lockhore, 'cos I managed to sneak into Lesley's secret underground room thing, and I over heard this massive meeting, and apparently, Lockhore is their biggest enemy, and" I scowled, "They were talking about using me to take over the world, and three other teenagers. So, I decided to escape from here, and try to help the other teenagers to escape to!" I finished off.

They stared at me. "Now," I said, feeling slightly more in control, "I've 'fessed up about my plan, so what the heck are you guys doing?"

"You snuck into the secret room, over heard the whole meeting and got out undetected?" The guy on the other side of me squealed, "That's amazing!"

The leader coughed. "It seems we owe you an apology,"

"Apology accepted, but, if you don't mind could you have these guys back off, my arm is hurting bad enough from that fall without it being dislocated," Which was true.

The man nodded, and the two men went over to the others, by the doorway. I rubbed my now very sore arm.

"We too, have been trying to escape, rumours have spread fast, that we have an enemy, who is called Lockhore, and many of the Zytons here plan to escape, but only we decided to escape together.

"I am Grifth, Sam Grifth, those guys are Dan and Jack," He pointed to the burly men who had caught me. "The women are Amy, Corrine and Kathy"

There was a couple of nods from Dan and Jack, mainly, but most of them just looked nervous.

"I'm Dylan," I told them.

"Ok then Dylan, please could you tell us how in heck you got into that meeting."

So I told them everything, from the moment I'd met Tie-Cho, all the suspicions I'd had, how I'd been experimenting with my powers, and all about the meeting. The only thing I left out was my two visions of Erin, but they were kind of personal.

"Wow," Dan muttered to himself.

"You've got some pretty awesome power inside you, haven't you," Sam grinned, he leaned in and held out his hand, "What do you say, want to join us, and escape from this place? We can break your fellow jail mates out too, if we can, and, in return, if we get into trouble, and they find us, you can freeze time and take all the guns of them,"

I considered for a second. It wasn't that I didn't appreciate the offer, I just wasn't sure. I mean, I was ready to run off, but I wasn't really the type to plan ahead, and, well I'd kinda imagined going solo when I'd escaped. Then again, these guys could probably offer me food and shelter, and help me spring Erin, Jam and Fire.

I shook his hand.

"Ok," I glanced toward the clock, and realised that we'd been talking for over half an hour. "It's past seven, though, so we can't really do anything else without arousing suspicion. People will be getting up soon,"

Sam glanced worriedly at the clock. "Yes, we'll might back here at four in the morning, all right, then we'll tell you our escape plan," I nodded in agreement.

"Right then," Sam ordered, "Dan and Kathy, you go out now. Corrine and Jack will follow you out in two minutes time." The two of them set off immediately. Corrine and Jack moved up to the door. I guessed they'd done this a lot, 'cos people might be suspicious if they all came back together.

Sam turned to me, "Go with Amy. Walk straight back to your room, wait a few minutes, then go out and do whatever you want. Just remember," he said, as Jack set off, Corrine trailing behind slightly, "You never met us, because we were all in bed,"

He turned away, leaving me by the door with Amy. She smiled at me, but was still looking too nervous to smile properly.

"All right, you two can go now!" Sam announced to us.

Amy opened the door then, and I walked confidently out, and straight back to my room, not looking back incase it looked weird.

The minute I got in my room, I collapsed on the bed. So much had changed! Before I forgot, I slipped my scribbled note about Lockhore's stuff into my backpack. Then I thought for a long time about weather I'd made the right decision.


	19. Chapter 18

Erin's POV

* * *

Well, I thought after a while, back to the useless plotting. I decided to try to practise with my powers. I would see where Jam was, then, if there was no one else in the room; I'd try to teleport to him. And then I'd try Fire.

I brought up my images and focused on tiny details, like on the day we'd been captured, Fire had been wearing her least favourite coat. She hated it 'cos it was so big and bulky, and had so many pockets. I wonder why she was wearing it. Just like before, the world slipped away from me, and when I opened my eyes, I was in the massively small white place again. I grinned; I'd done it!

I concentrated hard on Jam, and a light came towards me. When it got too bright to watch, I covered my eyes, and, by the time my eyes had re-adjusted, I could see Jam pacing round a small room, much the same as mine and Fire's, only, the carpet was brown, and the walls were more crème than white. The room was on the bottom floor, directly opposite the entrance to the building, and the perfect place to be held against your will, since it would be easy to push Sinel or Tie-Cho out of the way and run right out of the building. I couldn't do that though, what, with being four floors above and all.

I waved my hands through the image and it disappeared. Now, I thought, how to get myself there… I scrunched my face up in thought, and tried to come up with ideas.

My first thought was to try jumping into the image of Jam, but when I conjured up the image again and tried that, it disappeared again. I tried to bring up the images of me in my room, and Jam in his, and merge them together, but all I got was a bad headache. I thought of practically everything, unfortunately, none of them worked.

Maybe, I sighed to myself, maybe I just can't teleport myself anywhere. I was slightly disappointed, since, A) this was so not going to help my escape plan, and B) I had totally wanted to surprise Jam. I could imagine appearing there suddenly, out of nowhere, and Jam jumping in surprise and falling over, like he always does when someone surprises him. I smiled briefly, and was just about to return to my body, when everywhere started spinning.

"What the-"I shouted, falling over. Only, since it's all a whole tonne of white, and there's no real floor or ceiling, I kept falling- and don't ask me how I could stand up before, 'cos I honestly don't have a clue. Suddenly, I could see something below me. Some sort of brown shape. I frowned. I was falling to the ground at about a hundred miles an hour perhaps? So, wouldn't I just go splat at the bottom? Ok, so not cool, I muttered, but the words were ripped out of my mouth. I spread my arms out, trying to control my fall in any way. I looked down at the small rectangle of brown. It was about fifty metres away, and I still wasn't slowing. I started to panic. What would happen if I went splat here? Would I wake up inn my body, and never be able to use my powers again? Or would I just die?

Thirty metres away. I still wasn't slowing down! In fact, I thought with added panic, I might actually be speeding up! I started screaming. I mean, wouldn't you do that if you were falling at a hundred miles an hour down to a tiny rectangle, and that the impact would probably break every bone in your body?

Twenty metres away. I closed my eyes. Please let me not die! I begged. Please!

Although I couldn't see when I hit the ground, I could feel it. My whole body slammed into it, whacking the whole of my face into it, and nearly breaking my nose. Everything felt bruised.

I rolled over, surprised to see that, A) I wasn't dead, B) I hadn't broken any bones, and C) I knew this room, and it wasn't mine.

"Erin! How did you get here? Are you ok? Stop screaming before someone hears!" Jam said, running over to me.

I was still screaming? I shut my mouth. Everything went quiet. Oh. I had been screaming after all.

"That," I said, as Jam helped me up, "Was horrible. I am _never_ doing that again in my life! God! I feel sorry for Tie-Cho now! Even if he was a lying jerk!"

I stumbled over to the bed and sat down on it, rubbing my aching arms and legs.

"What did you do to Tie-Cho? How did you get here? Tell me!" Jam demanded.

I looked at him, then grinned, finally realising what I'd done, "I just teleported myself here! Oh, and I sent Tie-Cho on a holiday to Hawaii, which, if the journey was the same, was probably not the best holiday in his life, although, he probably landed on sand," I mused.

"Whoa! Back up a minute! Teleporting? You can teleport?" Jam asked incredulously.

"Yup," I said, watching the bruises start to form all over. I went into the small bathroom in the corner of the room and inspected my face.

I had a massive bruise all the way down my left cheek and I had busted my lip, which was bleeding madly. I grabbed some toilet paper and pressed down against the blood, grimacing slightly.

"So," I started, my voice slightly muffled, "What can you do?"

Jam grinned, "Destroy stuff!"

I arched an eyebrow, "Oh really? Trust you to get the destructive powers. I'll bet you anything that Fire'll be able to speak to trees or something nature-ish and non-violent. So, are you gonna show me what you can do?"

Jam's grin widened, "Why sure! I'd be delighted to!" He closed his eyes for a second, and then held his hands towards the mirror. It shattered immediately, glass flying everywhere, scraping my face and leaving dents where they landed. It seemed that the only thing in the room that had remained unscratched was Jam.

I frowned, "Could you have at least stopped me from getting cut to shreds again?" I moaned playfully.

Jam looked at me scathingly. "Ok, ok," I smiled and admitted defeat, "It _was_ pretty impressive. But…" I hesitated, "If you could destroy that mirror, then why didn't you just blast the door off and run away, I mean, the entrance is directly outside your room!"

"It is?" Jam asked, and I realised that he had probably never tried escaping, and didn't have the ability to know where he was- which was kinda obvious, but still.

"Yeah," I told him, "You're on the bottom floor. Blast down the door, run right out, and bam! You're free!"

"Wow! Wish I'd known that, I could've made a break for it!"

"You're probably the only one of us that could. I mean, I'm on the top floor, and the one time I tried to escape, about twenty security guards were chasing me down the corridor, and another lot of them caught me at the bottom of the stairs! Of course, I did get held up looking through all the rooms on my floor for you… And Fire's just a floor below me, so she probably wouldn't be able to escape either,"

It was Jam's turn to frown. "I… I think she tried to… I think she tried to escape, and got nearly to the bottom floor, but… but they caught her,"

I blinked. "What? She tried to escape? How did you know? Have you guys been able to talk to each other? That is so unfair! Sinel would never let me see you guys in a million years. Then again, I have seriously bugged him a lot, so it's mainly my fault. But still-"

Jam cut me off mid-rant, "We _haven't_ been able to see each other! I can just, kinda sense that she did. On the first day we were here, I sensed that she was trying to escape. I don't know how. Or why."

I grinned; this was gonna make life a lot easier, if Fire could 'sense' things about her brother the in the same way. I turned to Jam, "Um… hello? Obvious much? It's another power you have!"

Jam frowned in confusion, "Another power? I thought we only had one,"

"Well," I reasoned, "I have two separate powers, don't I? Sinel started threatening to hurt you guys, so I told him that the threats were empty, since I could just teleport you away, and he went all smug, and told me that I couldn't teleport anyone unless I knew where they were, which means that the teleporters he knows can only teleport, but I can sense where people are!"

Jam looked at me blankly, "Yeah, I caught something about threats, something about Sinel, and something about teleporting," He told me.

I sighed. I guess Jam just wasn't made for listening to people.

"Ok! Forget that! My point is; you can have more than one power! Yours are destroying things and a possible telepathic link between your sister and you,"

"Ok with me!" Jam said, probably bubbling with the delight of having two different powers.

"Right, well, if you don't mind me, I'm off to visit Fire, try updating her with all the news before I get there!" I stood up, and walked into the centre of the room.

"Wait!" Jam cried, "How? How do I tell her that? What do I do?"

"Dude," I told him, closing my eyes and thinking of my images, "That's for _you _to work out; I don't know how to work your powers anymore than you know how to use mine,"

"Right," Jam muttered, and I could just imagine his shoulders slumping in rejection, like they always do when he feels lost and confused.

Then, right on time, I felt the world disappear from around me, and, like the other times, I was in my empty space when I opened my eyes.

I wasted no time congratulating myself, and started imagining me in Fire's room straight away.

When the spinning started _this_ time, I was less surprised, and, with some difficulty, managed to stay upright. Unfortunately, although I was still standing, I still had to fall.

I didn't open my eyes the whole of the time, so I nearly screamed in surprise when I felt the floor hitting off my bare feet.

I opened my eyes to see Fire grinning up at me from the bed. "You did it! I was getting worried! It took you about ten minutes! Jam managed to fill me in with everything before you got here!"

"Wow!" Was all I could say. Ten minutes? It'd felt like seconds. I really need to practise this kind of stuff. "Wait, you mean, Jam actually managed to contact you! That's great!"

"Isn't it!" Fire beamed, then her smile faltered, "But when we tried to get to you, it didn't work,"

"Well, try again," I told her.

She closed her eyes and concentrated. I waited for about five minutes, and then she opened her eyes, "Nothing!" She said dejectedly.

"Hey! Just 'cos you can't get to anyone else, doesn't mean the whole thing is a waste! You and Jam can speak to each other whenever you want!" I pointed out.

"Yeah, I suppose, but is that really such a good thing? I mean, Jam's really annoying sometime!" Fire moaned to me, clearly wondering what new form of torture by irritation her brother would come up with. "But I do have another power," Fire told me, brightening up immediately.

"What is it?" I demanded, "Spill!"

Fire laughed. "I'll show you instead!" She closed her eyes and frowned in concentration.

Suddenly, I felt all the bruises on my arms, legs and face tingle. They tingled for a few seconds longer, then they started melting away. Literally. I stared down at me arm, watching in amazement as the massive bruise there shrivelled up and disappeared before my eyes.

"Whoa! You can heal people! Way cool!" I yelp excitedly, twisting my arm around and trying to find any sign of injury.

Fire shook her head, "It's more than that. I can… well… I suppose I'm like the antidote to Jam's power. If he breaks something, I fix it. If I went into Jam's room, I could probably mend the mirror he broke."

"Neat!" I said, smiling encouragingly.

"Not half as neat as you teleporting!" Fire smiled back.

I suddenly remembered my suspicions on cameras in my room. Well, I thought, I spent around ten minutes talking to Jam, and if there'd been cameras in his room, they would've caught me by now, but there was still the problem of the cameras in my room.

They will have seen me disappear, I thought, but, if I come back, they'll be suspicious of me. So what do I do?

I turned to Fire for help.

"Well… they don't know that you can teleport to places you don't know, so, you can't teleport anywhere in the whole of this place, and Ashley might still be at the orphanage if you teleport there, so she'll tip them off and you'll get caught again… I wonder how the orphanage is coping with our disappearances." She looked off into the distance, in deep thought. I smiled evilly, thinking of the reaction we might have caused. Fire then blinked, and carried on, "Well, anyway, if you ask me, I think you should teleport into one of the rooms on you're floor that you barged into while looking for us. I mean, you know the place, so that wouldn't make them suspicious, and, if you want to get re-caught, all you've gotta do is try and make it out of the front entrance." Fire advised me, then added, "But why don't you just escape, you know, teleport out if here?"

I gave her a withering glance before gesturing to my nightdress, "Teleport away wearing this! Besides, I have some stuff in my clothes that I was hiding in the lining, just like you were with your coat!"

Fire looked sheepish, "Never hurts to be prepared, right?"

I rolled my eyes and fell back onto Fire's bed, "Truth is," I admitted, "I won't leave you guys behind, and, I don't think I'll be able to teleport all three of us out of here, I'm just way too tired to do it,"

My shoulders slumped; all of what I'd just said was true, I _was_ really tired, and I could just tell that I wasn't gonna be able to teleport another three times.

Fire smiled encouragingly at me, "Then do what I said, teleport one last time, try to make a run for it, and get caught,"

I stood up, smiling back at her, "Thanks for the help! I'd love to stay longer but… well, you know," And I closed my eyes and summoned the images.

I don't think I took too long teleporting to the room next to mine. I stayed deathly quiet as I appeared in the room, and sneaked slowly over to the door. Edging it open a tiny crack showed me that there was no one in this part of the corridor. I slipped out of the room and looked around wearily. Sure, I was aiming to get caught, but I also wanted to retrieve one or two things.

Now, I thought, as I trudged carefully down a flight of steps to the floor below, if I were evil and deranged, and just so happened to be called Sinel, where would I put my prisoner's stuff.

As it turned out, I would've put them in a room on the second floor marked; Storage. I grinned to myself as I pushed open the door and began searching through the stuff inside.

It didn't take me long to find my stuff, and I slipped my uniform gratefully, since it meant that I no longer had to wear a dress, even if the jumper was hideously bright yellow. The, I cautiously patted down the trousers, searching for the stuff hidden in the lining. It was still there. I shrugged to myself; idiots will be idiots I suppose.

I grabbed fire and Jam's stuff and sneaked back up to the third floor. I didn't waste time in Fire's room, just gave her the stuff and told her to tell Jam to expect me at any minute.

Getting to Jam would be more risky, since his room was in plain sight of everyone in the main entrance, so I'd have to get in and out quick.

I got to the bottom floor without interruption, and continued to tiptoe round to the room I knew Jam was in. I stopped a few metres away from it, taking in its position for the first time. When I'd known where it was, I hadn't seen it, only felt where it was. The room was behind the receptionist's desk, witch was kinda semi-circular-ish, so you could walk round the sides of it and get into the rest of the building. In front of the desk was a small space, with chairs for waiting and stuff, and at the very front of the room, there was the electric doors. Shouldn't be too hard to escape at least, I thought, staring at all the people in the lobby.

I waited there for a good few minutes, which was really pushing my luck, since I hadn't been caught yet, before I finally spotted a decent opportunity to get to Jam's room. I darted over, yanked open the door, and eased it quickly but silently shut.

Jam was sitting on the bed looking bored, "You took your time!" He muttered, taking the clothes off me.

"Don't put them on!" I warned, as he started heading towards the bathroom.

He turned, looking puzzled, "Why not?"

I scowled. Were all teenage boys this stupid? No, it was probably just Jam. "If you do, they'll know that I've been here, but I'm not supposed to know that you're in this room! They would be able to spot you escaping or sneaking out straight away, and the only other person who could get your clothes are me and Fire. Are you with me?"

"Not really, but, ok," Jam shrugged.

I sighed and headed towards the door, "See ya!" I muttered as I slipped out of the room.

No one had noticed me reappear into the room. Time to make some noise! I thought, and headed back to the stairs. Once I was up to the second floor, I turned round and started running down the stairs, clomping hard in my shoes. Since the stairs were wooden (did I not mention that before?) it made a real racket, and I had quite a few employee people chasing after me by the time I hit the lobby. I started screaming, just to attract more attention.

"Move out of the way! Trying to escape here!" I yelled, deliberately admitting to escaping.

It was a good tactic; everyone in the lobby immediately converged in me, and before I knew it, someone had me in an arm lock and I was kneeling on the floor in front of Sinel.

I grinned up at him cheekily; I couldn't resist the temptation, "You didn't say I couldn't teleport _myself_ away! Only your staff!"

Sinel smirked smugly, thinking he'd just prevented me escaping, or finding the others, or fighting back to him in any way. But, I thought, he is _sooo _wrong!

"What good did that do? Since you teleported out of you're room, but not out of the building, you haven't really done any harm!" He looked over my head, past the angry, muttering mob of employees surrounding me, and seemed to spot something, "Ahh, here come our friends, the security guards,"

The staff began to move away from us, and I felt the grip on my arms start to loosen. I started to pull free, but someone else's hands replaced them, someone who was much stronger. My arms were being pulled so tight it felt like they were slowly being dislocated from my shoulder bone.

"Ouch! Stop it! That hurts!" I cried out, as the pain in my arms doubled.

Sinel's smile widened. The sadist! He turned to another security guard, "Take her to her room and then post a security guard outside her room, and one on the staircase at each level,"

"Ok boss," The goon answered back in a gravely voice.

My captor pulled my up by the arms and pushed my forwards, making me wince in pain at the sudden change of pressure.

I was shoved cruelly into the room, where I collapsed on the bed, exhausted. It took me less than a minute to curl up into a ball and fall into a long, natural sleep.


	20. Chapter 19

Dylan's POV

* * *

When I finally got down to the cafeteria it was nine o'clock. I grabbed some bacon and eggs and sat down by myself, eating in silence. I looked around the place a few times, but I didn't see any of my fellow comrades.

When I came back to my room, I found another note from Lizzie saying that Tie-Cho's lessons had been cancelled again.

Weird, and kinda annoying, since I had no clue how to spend the rest of the day.

I flopped back onto my bed and wondered what I should do for the rest of the day. I stared at the ceiling of my room for a while. My mind switched off after a few minutes of staring at the smooth beige ceiling, and I just relaxed. I pondered idly what people did with there lives around here, then decided that I probably didn't care.

I rolled off the bed and stood up, pacing backwards and forwards across the room, an annoying habit of mine.

Suddenly, I couldn't stay in the room any longer; I just _had_ to get out of here. I grabbed the door, and walked out. I jogged out of the building, not wanting to attract any attention, and continued my run, right up to the metal fence that ran round the perimeter.

There, I turned left, and followed the fence along, sprinting full out, just because I could. The wind whipped through my hair, and pushed against my thick jacket, making it puff out, and slam against me. The weak, winter sunlight peaked between the clouds, and shone on me, warming my face. The smell of frost and cold surrounded me, and the fog of my breath in front of me told me that I should have been cold, but I wasn't.

The buildings of campus were far behind now, and, with them out of sight, my breathing came easier, and I felt I could relax, if only for a few minutes. After another few minutes, I stopped, bending over, and breathing so hard that I was panting; the restless energy that had driven me here had disappeared, and I never had been a good runner.

I saw a tree a few metres ahead (the only one for miles, by the looks of it) and walked over to lean on it. I looked around me, seeing that the metal fence turned sharply up ahead, so it was going across, for about a mile, then, once again, it turned sharply, and headed back to campus. In the far corner, I could just make out a tall building of some sort. I frowned, and wondered what it could be. Well, I thought, I may as well continue along the fence.

I got up wearily, and began to take long strides forward, following the fence once again (I wasn't going to try running, it'd probably take twice as long, because I'd have to take so many breaks along the way).

It took me another twenty minutes, quick-walking nonstop, to reach the building, and by that time, my skin felt like it was freezing over, and I wouldn't have been shocked to see icicles on the end of my nose. I glanced inside at the only window on the building, but no one seemed to be inside. I bit my lip, considering on weather or not I should look inside. Something about this place is giving me the creeps, I thought uneasily, glancing around again, and feeling like someone was watching me. Shrugging to myself, I went over to the door and pushed it open.

No one jumped out. No one screamed. I stepped forward, and leaned around the door. No one was inside the room. Quietly, I tip-toed in and eased the door shut. Then, I turned around to get a better look at the room.

It was a small room, and the desk in the middle took up most of the space in it. On the desk, there were a whole ton of computer screens that looked suspiciously like security camera films. I sat down on the luxurious armchair, and took in the rest of the room.

The walls had paintings hung on them, all sorts of different styles. I recognised one or two by Picasso, and another one by Vahn Gogh, but that was the extent of my knowledge on Art. On the other side of the room, a small wooden door led through onto the rest of the building.

I got up and headed over it, trying to remain confident that there was no one in the building. I opened the door a tiny bit and peeked inside. Seeing no one there, I walked in. This room was twice as small as the one before, with only a small set of spiral-ish stairs leading up, onto the second level. I edged up them.

Half-way up, an open door poked out of the wall. I caught my breath as I heard shuffling from inside. Crap, crap, crap! I thought, as a pair of feet appeared out of the doorway. I darted up, and hid behind the door, my moment of panic robbing me of any useful ideas.

A middle-aged man stepped out of the doorway, carrying a massive, heavy looking box in front of him. I pulled myself closer to the wall and braced myself for the moment when the man would close the door and find me.

The feet moved away, downstairs. I opened one eye, and peeked round the side of the door, to see the back of the retreating man. I let out a cautious breath I didn't know I'd been holding. I heard the door at the bottom open and swish shut, faintly, and leapt out of my hiding place. I shuddered at how close I'd been to getting caught. I stepped around the door and looked into the cupboard curiously.

A whole ton of cardboard boxes, like the one the man had been carrying, where stacked on the floor. I bit my lip, wondering weather I should look inside one of them. Deciding that it couldn't hurt to take a quick look at them, as long as I was away before the man came back, I stepped into the abnormally large cupboard. I climbed up one of the boxes to reach for another behind, and gently pulled it open.

Inside their was several small, long, thin, rectangular shaped things. I picked one up and stared at it, taking in the smooth black outer case, and the small logo which said;

R+E Enterprise.

I frowned; I had never heard of the company. Growing more and more inquisitive by the minute, I carefully prised open the case. There, lying on a soft velvet pillow was a wristwatch of some sort. I was just about to inspect it further, when I heard the door at the bottom of the stairs open.

Cursing inwardly, I slipped the case into my pocket, closed the box, and eased my way down the boxes. Once at the door, I peeked round it, and spotted the man, still a flight beneath me. I tip-toed faster than I'd ever done in my life, and managed to get another flight up, and into a small corridor, before the man arrived at the cupboard.

He went inside, and I slid silently down the wall and sneaked a look down below. The man bumbled about in the cupboard below for another ten minutes at least and every minute fresh, torturous thoughts of what would happen if I was caught came into my head.

As soon as I thought that he was out of earshot, I stood up and darted through the door into the door at the end of the corridor. It was a fancy, posh room, compared with the rest of the building, which was somewhat shabby. A long L-shaped sofa sat against the wall, and, although there were no windows, the room was bright and fresh.

I guess since I'd only seen the man around, I'd automatically assumed that there was no one else in the building, so I didn't need to be as cautious. Whatever the reason, I was wrong, and now I was going to get into trouble. Because, sitting in the middle of the sofa, was Lizzie.

I cringed mentally at my stupidity.

"Um… Hi?" I muttered, walking over to sit at the other end of the sofa to Lizzie.

"Hello, what are you doing here?" Lizzie said, getting straight to the point, just like last time.

"Well… I was going for a walk, since there's nothing to do around here and um… I saw this building and got curious, so I ugh… came over to check it out?" I stuttered.

Lizzie frowned at me sceptically.

"You do know this building is out of bounds," She said sternly.

I grinned cockily now, because I had the perfect excuse for this. "Really? You would've thought they'd have put up a sign to say so."

Lizzie's ever-permanent scowl became considerably deeper, and my smile widened as I saw faint black marks off the permanent marker I'd used on her face.

"Do you not think it's enough that no one has ever mentioned it, and it is set a mile away from campus?"

"Nope!"

Lizzie sighed, and glared at the wall opposite. "That's what I told them… Didn't listen of course!" I decided it was ok to feel slightly sorry for her, "Then all the twerps like you come along and sneak into here, and stick their noses into other peoples business and be generally very cocky and annoying!" My sympathy for Lizzie vanished and I glowered at her.

"Well, whatever, it's your problem, not mine," I told her, "I'm off to seek less self-centred company,"

I got up and marched over to the door, but Lizzie's incessant voice followed me, "Oh yeah? So, tell me, before you go, what should I tell Lesley about your suspicious act of breaking and entering?"

I cringed, knowing she'd got me. "Um…" I muttered turning around again, "How about nothing?"

Lizzie snorted, "And miss out on a perfect opportunity to rat you out! Not a chance!" I slumped, knowing that I really needed Lesley not to know about this visit, but Lizzie wouldn't be doing anything for me, except get me into trouble. Well, it's up to my amazing skills of persuasion *sarcasm intended*.

"Aww… come on Lizzie!" I moaned pathetically, desperately trying to wriggle out of danger, "Please?"

Lizzie's smug smile made my hands clench together and it took all my willpower to not punch her in the face.

"Give me one reason why I should," Lizzie demanded.

"How about 'cos you're a nice person?"

Again, Lizzie snorted.

"Er…." I stalled, trying to think of anything to get out of this mess, "Um… I'll be your best friend?" I asked.

Lizzie almost laughed, "I get a kick from you're pain!" She told me, grinning.

I stopped my helpless search for an answer, to reply to her, "Have you read the dictionary before? Nope? Well, if you look up the word sadist, it'll have your picture under it!" I said brightly.

Lizzie's smile disappeared, "All right, now I'm definitely telling Lesley!" She growled.

I shrugged, giving up with her, "You were gonna tell him anyway, you just enjoyed seeing me desperate, like I said, you're a complete sadist,"

And with that, I turned around, and walked out of the room. I didn't see the man rummaging around in the cupboard, but decided that, if Lizzie was going to be a grass, the best I could do was make it look like I hadn't sneaked up here, and was just generally curious.

I met the man coming out of the building, and he gave me a really suspicious, weird look, I smiled and waved, and said, "Not much in there! I came here to check it out, spotted it while I was jogging!" Then set off at a pace that could possibly be called jogging, but was more like a quick walk.

When I got back to the main sight in campus, it was about 2 o'clock, and, of course, I was absolutely, starving.

I popped into the cafeteria, grabbed a random sandwich and walked out again, stuffing massive bites into my mouth as I went. I was finished eating my sandwich (chicken, if you really want to know) by the time I got to my room. I hesitated outside my room for a few minutes, then turned around, and headed to the library. To heck with it all, I'll only get myself worked up over something again! There's nothing else to do in there anyway.

I arrived at the deserted library, and looked around. A short, stout woman sat behind the librarian's desk. Her name badge read;_** Hello! I'm Doris Doodle, if you need any help, please come to me**_, but I didn't think I would be going anywhere near her, the glare she gave me when I came in could have frozen up the Caribbean.

I headed over to the small collection of shelves and chose to inspect the one furthest away from her. The books there were mostly biographies, thirty-year-old magazines and factual crap that was about five centuries old. The musty smell of decaying books wafted around my nose, as I picked up one of the rapidly deteriorating books up. I turned over the sharp, jagged edges of the faded yellow pages, and inspected the neat handwritten words. I couldn't read any of it, mainly because the handwriting was so swirly you wouldn't have been able to tell what a G was and what an A was. I plonked myself on the floor next to the bookshelf and buried my head in a book until I was sure that the librarian would have forgotten about me, then snuck round to look at the interesting books, which turned out to be even less interesting than the ones you couldn't read!

I settled down after several terrifying glares from the librarian, with a book that, if I went cross eyed and tilted it upside down, read; The World Of Ambleside… I almost fell asleep through half of it, but managed to read a whole paragraph of squiggly writing before my brain went numb and I stopped taking the information in.

Three hours later and my head was spinning as I walked out of the library to the dining room. I don't think I'd actually taken in a single word of the book, and now my eyes ached, and I was sure they were red and puffy, because, at one point, I'd actually fallen asleep. Screwed up sleeping patterns- they come back to take revenge at the very moment you really don't want them to…


	21. Chapter 20

Dylan's POV (again)

* * *

After dinner, I staggered up too ,any flights of stairs to my room and collapsed on my bed.

My alarm clock went off at 3:50 am and I groaned and rolled onto my back. Damn escape plans! I thought, hauling myself up. I got dressed silently before padding downstairs to Sam's room.

I knocked on the door and Sam opened it. He looked up and down the corridor to make sure there was no one else around, then let me in.

I sat on a random chair in the middle of the room and waited for Amy and Dan to arrive. When they did, Sam pulled out a massive sheet of writing. I sighed to myself and thought about how geeky this was going to be.

I described to them once again the whereabouts of the building that Erin, Jam and Fire were being held in, and got a flood of suggestions on how to get them out. I was also given a list of things I might need for our escape. How kind. And incredibly nerdy. Apparently, we would be trying to make a break for it tonight, at midnight. Do you ever get sick of plots that are based at midnight? I mean, come on, lame much? Everyone does it! Tip for all victims of future robbery/captors, most things happen at midnight, so be extra aware. On second thoughts, maybe try not to be aware.

The reason we were going so soon was because everyone felt that we couldn't go on much longer without getting caught, and, we had a plan and the right equipment to pull it off, so why not do it now, since no one would suspect us of running away in the middle of winter. I was tempted to tell them exactly _why_ no one expected any of us to run away in the middle of winter, but suspected that it would probably not help.

According to the plan, we would meet outside the building at 12, then head out to the building Erin & co. were being held prisoner in. I would freze time, and get them out as quickly as possible, then we would cut through the fence surrounding the campus, and head across the open fields, trying to get as far away from this place as possible untill dawn broke. Ok, so, as plans go, it wasn't much; the best way to escape would have been some random friend turning up with a team trained to help people bust out of places, then suddenly having a couple of really fast cars magically appearing and whisking us far from this hellhole. But no, apparently, there wasn't even a bus route within 20 miles!

Anyway, the only thing I've got to do before midnight tonight is find out exactly which rooms Erin and her friends are being kept in. For a meeting, it was probably… I don't know… how about, the most boring, geekiest meeting ever? I mean, Sinel's meeting at least had food. I didn't say this, though, since I didn't want to offend my new friends.

By the time it was 7 o'clock, and the meeting was finished, my head felt numb from the overload of information, and I was about to collapse in a heap on the floor because I was so tired. I went straight back to my room and decided to stuff any other plans I had for today, and just sleep. Of course, I realised just before I fell unconscious, that I hadn't had a letter under the door from Lizzie, which meant that Tie-Cho was back, and I would have a lesson later on today. Great, as if my schedule wasn't hectic enough.

When I woke up again, I felt a little less tired, and more up to my list of chores. I went through my backpack and snuck down to the store to nick some of the stuff from the list of equipment that I'd been gone. At least, even if they were nerdy, they were thorough, since I hadn't even thought of bringing a torch and batteries. I was just about to head out to Tie-Cho's lesson, when I remembered the small box I'd found yesterday. I slipped it out of my pocket and opened it, examining the watch. I took it out of the box to get a proper look. The strap was leather and navy blue, and the watch facce itself was square. I wonder how you switch it on, I thought, staring at the blank screen. I glanced at the clock by the bed. I was going to be late if I didn't hurry. I slipped the watch back into the box and put the box in my backpack. I could examine it later if I needed to.

I got up and I set out to Tie Cho's lesson before I was any later.

When I got there, Tie-Cho told me he had decided that I should kow more about the history of Zytons, so he had decided to torture me with- sorry- tell me, the history of Zytons.

"Now, do you know how the first Zyton got his powers?" Tie-Cho asked me.

I stared at him, "Nope, not a clue,"

"Neither does Tie-Cho... Let's move on," Tie-Cho told me.

Great, I thought, I'm having an imensly boring history lesson and my teacher is a clueless, possibly not-right-in-the-head, weirdo. I sat back and started counting down the minutes 'til the end of the lesson.

It took a whole 2 hours before Tie-Cho was satisfied that I knew enough about our history, but I don't think I'd actually listened to a single bit of it. That's me, the one who has serious atention problems. I got up and stretched as Tie-Cho headed out of the room without a backwards glance.

Ok, I thought, as I headed out of the room, 2 tasks down, 1 to go.

I headed out to the secret building where Erin and her friends were- hopefully- still being held, and stood for a while outside it, watching everyone. After a few minutes, someone came out of the revolving doors, and I saw my chance. I froze time, but the door was already closed. I growled to myself. These powers would be a lot more helpful if they didn't take so long to use. I walked over to the door and tried to heave it open. It shifted slightly, and I spent the next few minutes pulling it, inch by inch, open. Eventually, the gap was big enough for me to slip through, and I headed into the room. It was quite big, and packed with lots of people. At the far end of the room was a semi-circular desk, and behind that, was a corridor, with doors along it, and stairs at the end. I shoved my way through the crowd of frozen people, and past the desk.

They won't have locked them in a room on this floor; I thought immediately, that would have made it too easy to escape from. I headed up the stairs and onto the next floor.

For the next hour, I attempted to unlock any of the doors along the corridor, and the only one I'd been able to unlock was; the storage cupboard. I tried the next floor, but they were all locked too, and my lock picking skills were all but non-existent. I sighed, it looked like I would be improvising tonight, but then again, I improvised lots, and it only ever ended up backfiring a few times... ok, maybe more than a few times... I headed out of the building and unfroze time, before setting off back to my room.

I decided to treat myself to a last meal of sorts, back in my room, so I ordered several dishes that sounded nice and ate with gusto, fully appreciating the delicious food after not having any for a whole day. After the meal, I got into bed and tried to catch whatever sleep I could for tonight's plan.


	22. Chapter 21

Erin's POV

* * *

When I woke up, I saw that, for the second time in the whole of my time here, I'd woken up alone. I stretched out my arms and saw, to my delight, that I still had my own clothes on, and that they hadn't put me back in the horrific nightgown again.

I got up and paced about the room, going over what had happened the day before. Judging by the half-light coming in from the window above me, it was either late at night, or early morning, about 11-12 ish. I walked over to the bathroom and stared at myself in the mirror.

I don't know why it came as a surprise that I looked exactly the same as a few days ago. I sighed and flopped down onto the floor on the bathroom, relishing the free time and space to think without other people butting in.

We, I thought, need to get out of here… but how? Well, that was easy, what with my super-duper teleporting powers; I'd be able to teleport Fire and Jam out of here with ease. I wondered if I would be able to see that cute boy again, even if I didn't know who he was… No Erin! I told myself angrily. Concentrate or you'll never get out of here alive.

I could almost hear my brain's sarcastic "Sir, yes sir!" as I went back to making up a plan.

If I could get us away from here, where would I go? Maybe back to the orphanage, but what would they think had happened to us? Did they think we'd run away? Or we'd been mysteriously adopted? Maybe we were dead to the known world. I shivered; freaky thought alert.

My brain whirred away in several directions, and some time later, I had come up with one of those sort of lopsided, completely insane plans that either work extremely well, or crash and burn (knowing my luck, it was more than likely to be the second option).

I climbed back up and looked around for something sharp that could cut through the lining of my pockets.

10 minutes later and I had produced a short piece of writing to explain my plan. I re-read it, shrugged and hoped for the best. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on my images and, sure enough, found myself in the white space. I really should decorate this place I thought to myself as I looked out at the never-ending whiteness, it's starting to look kinda depressing. I set to work though, and imagined my slip of paper appearing in my hand. After a few attempts, something firm appeared in my hands. On a totally of the subject thought, I wondered if I could stick some posters and stuff stuck up in here if I tried. I imagined Fire, since she was the most reliable of the two twins and tried to hand over the piece of paper. Fire's image disappeared. I frowned and, keeping a tight grip on the slip of paper incase that tried to dissolve too, I summoned Fire's image again. I tried to push the piece of paper into Fire's hand, but, once again, her image disappeared. For the third time, I thought of Fire, and this time, I chucked the stupid paper at her image. It was just my luck that not only Fire's image that disappeared, but the paper did to. I growled to myself, even more determined to succeed. I tried again, and this time, rather than summoning the paper, I only summoned Fire's image. Then, concentrating hard, I pictured the paper floating down from the ceiling -like paper does when it appears out of nowhere- and land on the bed. It worked.

I flopped back on the bed for a second. Please, please work, I thought, scrunching up my eyes. I waited a few more minutes but I knew that there was no way for me to find out if they had got the message or not, so I'd just have to go ahead and hope they had. I decided I would teleport to Fire's room before I did anything else. I'd probably made them very suspicious when I teleported the note away, and I didn't want them trying to stop me while I was in the middle of teleporting, did I?

I closed my eyes slowly and remembered the nervous knots in my stomach, so much like now. The sound of laughter, ringing in my ears. I opened my eyes and was greeted by familiar whiteness.

I pictured fire's room, and imagined myself there. C'mon, I thought, c'mon! I dropped, suddenly, and I opened my eyes out of shock. The wind whistled through my hair and my stomach was full of butterflies.

My landing was more comfortable than last time, and I bounced several times, before rolling off the bed. I stood up and dusted myself off. Fire was grinning at me. I guess she got the note then, I thought.

"Ok," I said, "Let's get this show on the road"

Fire nodded, "Right, who's going first?"

"Tell Jam to brace himself, I'll teleport him first," I told her.

Fire nodded and closed her eyes. A few seconds later, she blinked.

"Ok, he says he's ready, and he'll see you there."

Wow, I'm gonna know these memories of by heart at the end of this, I thought as I imagined my images again.

As soon as I opened my eyes, I imagined Jam. A blob of light whizzed round me again, but I caught it and cupped it in my hands. Wouldn't it be so freaky, I thought, if I was actually holding Jam, rather than a ball of light representing Jam. I brought my arm up so I could chuck Jam as far as possible, and thought about Lockhore. This is it, I thought, we're gonna find out if Lockhore really is one of the good guys or not. I lobbed Jam's ball of light as far away from me as possible, and thought, go to Lockhore!

Suddenly, a massive sort of cramp engulfed me. My limbs screamed at me in pain and I fell onto the floor.

"Ow!" I cried surprised.

The pain intensified, until every cell in my body felt like it was about to dissolve. I got a vague feeling that it was linked to me teleporting Jam.

It felt like forever, but after a few minutes, I felt the pain reducing. I groaned and realised I could move again. I climbed unsteadily to my feet. I searched for Jam, and, although I couldn't see him, I knew he had arrived at wherever Lockhore was.

Ok, now for Fire, I thought, still feeling slightly unsteady. I pictured Fire, but my brain was seriously messed up over what had just happened, so, rather than her turning into a ball and getting thrown to wherever Lockhore was, she appeared beside me. She shrieked and jumped backwards.

"Um... Erin? What the hell is this place?"

I stared at her.

"Now that," I said woozily, "Was not meant to happen,"

* * *

Dylan's POV

I don't think I slept a single wink, I thought as I climbed out of bed, heart pounding, at midnight. I got into my warm clothes, and grabbed my backpack off the floor, slipping silently out of the door.

The others were waiting for me outside, and I cursed as I saw it had just begun to snow. Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, it was definitely cold. I smiled at Corrine, who was at the back of the group, looking back at the buildings in a nervous kind of way. My heart was thudding against my chest and my breathing was shallow. My insides were twisting themselves into anxious knots. Our breath fogged up in clouds around us as we tip-toed around the edge of the yard, and I took the lead to show the others the way to the building.

"Ok, do your thing," Sam muttered to me, as we arrived next to the building.

I nodded nervously and focused on my images. When I opened my eyes, everyone was frozen.

"Right, let's go," I said to no one in particular.

* * *

Erin's POV

Fire looked at me, "Are you ok Erin? You really don't look well,"

Well, thanks for the news flash, I thought, but all I said was; "I'm fine, now let's get you out of here,"

I imagined a trap door opening underneath Fire's feet that led to Lockhore. Fire fell through so quickly she couldn't even shriek.

"Sorry Fire-" I began, but the overwhelming pain came back again.

I shrieked myself and curled up into the ball, the pain stabbing at every part of my body.

Somewhere in the middle of it, I appeared back in Fire's room, still shrieking, but I was in too much pain to worry about what had happened or what was about to.

* * *

Dylan's POV

Luck was with me this time as, when I got to the door, I found that I'd accidently frozen time when someone was walking through the door. Yay for me, I thought dryly, as I brushed past them and headed up the stairs. I had no clue what I was going to do, so I was just winging it and hoping that I'd get some clue as to where everything was.

Suddenly, a scream pierced my ears, and, without thinking, I ran up the stairs to where it came from. A sudden flashback caught me off guard and I realised that I recognised that scream. Erin. I ran faster than ever before and arrived at the end of a corridor before a fresh round of screams started. What's going on? I yelled at myself. You froze time, so how is Erin screaming? Why is she screaming? I arrived outside the room where the screams were coming from, just before they gave way to muffled sobs. Not giving myself time to think, I attacked the door and broke it down.

* * *

Erin's POV

I heard running footsteps and forced myself to stop Screaming. I held my breath for a second as I heard the footsteps stop outside the door. I was blissfully aware of the pain fading and sagged gratefully against the floor, sobbing with relief. Sure, I was tough when being threatened by bad guys, but I don't think I'd stand a chance if I was going to be tortured.

The door burst open, but I didn't bother to look; the pain was over, and that's all that mattered, I told myself.

"Are you ok?" A voice said, startling me into looking up. I realised I was still crying and attempted to stop. I was suddenly conscious of the fact that, although the pain was gone, all my muscles were still stiff and sore.

"Ow!" I moaned.

"What happened? What did you do? Where's Fire and Jam?"

"I am never doing that again, even if it means I'm stuck here. That. Was. Horrible." I spat out.

"Ok, fine," The voice said, and I felt myself being scooped up of the floor. "I'm not making you do anything. In fact, I'm helping you break out. Do you know where your friends are?"

We were moving now; I was jiggling back and forth slightly in his arms. I still didn't know who he was...

I smiled ruefully up at him, "I was busting them out, but it kinda went wrong." I frowned to myself. Would it be this painful every time I teleported someone. It hadn't been the first time, not when I'd teleported Tie-Cho, so why? I worried about Fire and Jam. "I think they got there," I murmured to myself.

We rounded a corner and stopped suddenly, before moving to one side and starting to walk again. I looked back to see a man facing the other way. He wasn't moving at all. Weird. We arrived in the silent lobby and I saw that we were the only ones moving, and everyone seemed to have stopped in the middle of doing something.

"What happened to everyone?" I asked woozily, my head starting to spin.

"Oh, I froze time so I could sneak in,"

I nodded, pretending to understand a single thing that was going on. My whole body was aching and I was exhausted. I looked up at him.

"Do you mind if I fall asleep?" I mumbled, bleary eyed.

He looked at me. "No, go ahead; you look like you need it,"

I closed my eyes, too far gone to wonder whether he'd just insulted me or done me a favour. My body relaxed and I fell asleep to the comforting rocking movement of being carried.


	23. Chapter 22

Dylan's POV

Short chapter this time :(

* * *

I carried Erin out of the building, and over to the others, before I unfroze time. The others jumped.

"Where are the other two?" Sam asked.

"They've busted out already, now let's get moving," I said, and started walking over to the nearest bit of fence, still carrying Erin. She weighed barely anything to me, though I wasn't exactly what you could call muscled. Dan and Jack came forward with the tweezers, or whatever they're called, and cut a hole in the fence while the rest of us waited. I wondered if Erin was cold in just her school clothes, but decided that now probably wasn't the best time to be fussing about, and that it'd have to wait until we'd got off campus.

We went through the fence and across the road, heading straight into the open fields. Once we had crossed the first field, I allowed myself only one look back, but I grinned to myself as I did. We'd escaped, finally!

We decided to set up camp as dawn broke, and so we stumbled into a small bunch of trees, where we would be able to rest a little without being spotted immediately. The others got to work setting up some tents whilst I wrapped a blanket around Erin, put a spare coat underneath her and propped her against a tree. I then attempted to get a fire going and collect some partially dry wood from the trees around us. The morning light was so dim that we could barely see past our noses, so we lit a fire and promised ourselves we'd put it out as soon as the light got better. Then, we sat down to talk over what we should do next. I left Erin where she was, since it was not too cold out right now, and she was probably more comfortable there than on the floor by the fire.

"So, where about are we heading?" I asked the others as we sat in the early morning silence.

"We've been over this before, and we think that the best thing is to attempt to find Lockhore as fast as we can, and get to relative safety wherever he is," Sam told me, "So, first, we get to the nearest part of civilization, and then, we work from there, taking busses, trains, anything we can afford, to get us all to safety,"

"So, how did you guys get together in the first place?" I asked curiously.

This time, Sam seemed to be more reluctant to tell me, "Kathy, Amy and I, had other friends at first. We had arrived here together with them, about twenty years ago; you might know one of them."

I looked up at him, curiously, and he sighed, and stared into the fire, refusing to look at anyone. "He was my best friend, before we got taken, but... he's not anymore. His name is Lesley Gonro."


	24. Chapter 23

Dylan's POV

* * *

"What happened, to split up your friendship?" I asked, in the silence that followed.

"We had been here for a few weeks, and Lesley was getting more and more visions of the future, visions that he began to realise, he wasn't able to control. He could see so much of the future, and he began to search for it, rather than be content to wait. His knowledge of the future became so much it was unhealthy, but still, he continued to look into it.

"Eventually, he caught the attention of Sinel, and was taken in as one of the staff, to predict where to find other Zyton's, stuff like that. But... he was getting ill, from all of the visions, and, though he could see the future, he couldn't see that. Sinel did nothing to help, and I was sure that Sinel was actually encouraging him...

"Kathy and Amy agreed with me, that this place and its people wanted our powers, not us, and Lesley was getting sicker by the day, we had to act. We told our closest friends only, and, together, came up with a plan. It was a good plan and had a decent chance of working. We just made one mistake. I just made one mistake.

"I was Lesley's best friend, despite what jad happened, so I wanted Lesley to come with us, to escape, before the visions killed him, I explained our plan to him, and begged him to come with us. He refused."

Sam bowed his head, in shame, but also in anger, and hurt. "We escaped the same night, but Lesley knew our plans, and had gone immediately to Sinel. We were ambushed, just a few meters from the fence. Nadine, and a few other friends, wanted to stay and fight. Nadine was able to move extraordinarily quickly, and could fight amazingly well. The three of us, we just got out of there as quick as we could... I never saw any of them again."

"Later, Lesley started to get better, he seemed to be having fewer visions, and was finally getting control back, but neither of us made any attempt to try to fix our broken friendship."

I nodded understandingly, and we lapsed into silence, until I heard a faint rustling from behind me. I turned to see Erin looking around nervously, so I waved slightly, and called over to her, "Hey! You're awake! C'mon over here, it's warmer by the fire,"

* * *

Erin's POV

I woke up in a patch of trees, in the middle of some forests, propped up against a tree. In front of me was a fire and around it were several people, sitting round it talking. How did I get here? I thought to myself, stretching my arms and legs and watching the people in front of me. One of them turned round and smiled at me.

"Hey! You're awake! C'mon over here, it's a lot warmer by the fire,"

It was just beginning to get light, and the grey morning was not bright enough for me to be able to see much. I walked over and sat down next to the person who had talked to me. I looked up at him, and saw his face properly for the first time. My heart stopped.

"You're the guy who-" I started.

"Who you saw the day you got kidnapped?" He asked.

I nodded silently, staring up at his gorgeously tanned face and cute features.

"Yeah," He said, answering my unspoken question, "I saw it in a vision, a few days ago,"

"Right. Where are we?" I asked, looking around.

"We broke out last night and are heading for the nearest hint of civilization. Which is about 20 miles away," One of the guys across the fire from me said.

"Oh, right," Twenty miles? Where the fuck were we?

"I'm Dylan, by the way," The cute guy said.

I smiled and shook his outstretched hand, "Erin," I told him.

The atmosphere around the fire was grave and serious, and I had the feeling that they'd been talking about something that bad had happened.

"I'm Amy," The woman next to me smiled and held out her hand.

Formal much? I thought, but smiled back and shook her hand. The others introduced themselves too, following Amy's lead, but by the time the last girl had said her name, I'd forgotten all the others.

We talked a while longer, passed round a few pieces of fruit and some bread, which, totally doesn't compare to a normal, decent meal, but had my mouth watering, as I realised with sudden horror, I hadn't a single morsel in three days! I took a big drink from a water bottle Amy gave me, and laid back, elbows propping me up. The solemn mood had been, with some effort, banished for now, and everyone around me was talking to one another and laughing. I turned to Dylan.

"Ok, I want some answers! Who exactly are these people? And, no offence, who are you?"

Dylan looked at me with an intensity that had my heart thumping in my chest, his deep blue eyes, only centimetres away from me, were mesmerising, and his blonde hair flopped ever so slightly into his eyes, to add to the cuteness. I pinched myself, focus, Erin; you don't even know the guy! But it felt like I did already, like I knew him and had just forgotten about him until now.

"Well, Sinel, Scar Dude, whatever, kinda convinced my foster parents to let me go away with him and so, I got dragged to his campus. From there, well, let's just say I found out a lot of stuff and ultimately decided that I wanted to escape. I bumped into these guys and they asked if I wanted to join them, so I did. There you go, my story," Dylan told me.

"But how did you know about me?" I demanded, and Dylan shrugged.

"Visions of you, and Fire and Jam," He admitted.

"Um... No offence, but that's kinda stalker-ish," I said, shivering, "What, did you see everything about me?"

Dylan shook his head, "Just visions of you over the past week, not anytime before that. I saw some of that snowball fight you had, for instance,"

I nodded, relieved; as much as I liked Dylan, I wasn't quite ready to let him know everything about my personal life.

"So how about you?" Dylan asked, "How did you get here?"

"Did you not see that in the vision?" I asked him back.

He shifted uncomfortably, "Yeah, but, you kinda looked as if you were expecting something to happen,"

I shrugged at that; I suppose we must have looked a little bit too wary and uptight to be passed off as acting casual, but then again, we were about to be kidnapped. "Well, I suppose it started when Jam and I had to do this crappy gorilla essay..." I spoke slowly, trying to remember all of the details right.

I saw Dylan smile from the corner of my eye, and guessed he'd had a vision of that, too. It was kind of weird to think back on something you've done and know that someone has seen the very same scene in a vision. It made me wonder why the heck Dylan had even had a vision of me in the first place. I shrugged off my complicated thoughts and started to tell Dylan my story.

I didn't notice, at first, when it started getting lighter, but the leader guy, San, or Sim or something, got up and put out the fire quite suddenly and called for everyone's attention. I looked up from talking to Amy, who had long since joined our discussion, and told me a little of her story too.

"We should try to get some sleep," The guy said, "We'll be walking all night again tonight. Put some distance between us and that god forsaken place,"

The others slowly got up and headed for individual tents, dotted around the small wooded area. Amy smiled and gestured for me and Dylan to follow her. She reached a small one-man tent, and leant inside to collect something.

"There you go!" She exclaimed, and tossed me a heavy backpack. I caught it and struggled to get a decent hold on it. "It's got a few pairs of clothes in it that might fit you, since I figured you would probably want something else to wear, once we'd busted out. You and Dylan will have to share a tent, mind; there aren't enough tents for everyone to get their own,"

I rolled my eyes, and headed in the direction of the tent she had pointed at. I stepped inside and ducked my head immediately, to stop my head from rubbing against the tent roof material.

I looked around and saw that the tiny space I was in was a sort of porch area, where we could put our stuff, and then there were 2 little zipped off areas for us to sleep in. I went over to the one on the right, unzipped it and crawled inside, rummaging in my backpack to see if there was a blanket or something to keep me warm. I eventually found a thermal sleeping bag that fit inside a case 10cm wide and 15 cm long. I wonder how thermal this could actually be, I thought, unrolling it. I took off my shoes and climbed in, fully dressed. The material on the outside was tough and almost plastic, but the inside was a warm, definitely thermal, comfortable material. I lay down, zipped up the bag and fell asleep straight away.


	25. Chapter 24

Dylan's POV... kind of...

* * *

I'm falling, and falling. My room disappears, I'm surrounded by white, but I'm still falling, and I'm screaming and yelling and I'm scared. Fire told me to brace myself, but I wasn't expecting this. My hands stretch out in the air around me, trying to grab onto something, but meeting nothing. I remember Erin, when she first teleported. She fell straight from the ceiling and dropped to the floor, screaming. Maybe this was what happened to her. The wind whistles through my hair at an ever increasing speed. I look down, and there it is, the ground. It's getting closer, and closer, and I'm falling faster, and faster, and I can't stop falling. I panic; I don't want to die! The ground is so close now and I know that when I hit the ground, I'll surely die, because, I'm going too fast, and the ground is too near. I close my eyes, and curl up into a ball. I don't want to die, I think.

I hit the ground with a massive THUMP, that seems to cause all my bones to vibrate, and my teeth are actually chattering, and I'm shaking. People around me are screaming and, I suppose they would; I've appeared from seemingly nowhere. I realise that, apart from a sore bum, I'm fine; my bones are still intact and I haven't got a single bruise. The screaming quietens as someone walks through the crowd towards me. I stand up to meet them, but, just as I do, someone else falls down next to me, and I'm more relieved than ever, because it's Fire. I grab her outstretched hand and pull her up. We smile at each other for a second, but then Fire gets serious, so we both turn to face the person.

"Who are you?" He asks, in a tense voice. He is very tall, and he looms above us both, in an intimidating manner, and I want to claim we were just passing, and run as far away from here from possible, but Fire's got other ideas.

She glares up at him, in a way that tells everyone around us that she is not, and will not be intimidated by this guy, "Who are you?" She asks, mimicking his tone exactly.

The man stands even taller, prouder.

"I," He says, "Am Lockhore!"

I snapped awake immediately, gasping for breath, my heart pounding, sweat running down my face. I looked around and see that I'm in my tent, that I nicked from the store, and, a few metres away, in a little zip-up compartment, Erin is sleeping lightly. It's quite light outside, so I guess it was about mid-day, since at any time earlier or later, it wouldn't have made much of a difference inside the tent.

I feel disorientated and woozy, and I realise that what just happened, in my dream, was in fact, real. Somehow, without me having to do anything to urge it on, I'd had a sort of vision. I thought back to it, but the images were fuzzy now, just as if it had been a dream. I remember Fire in it, but it wasn't from Fire's point of view... Jam! Realisation flooded through me, and I knew that I must have been experiencing how Jam felt when Erin 'teleported' him, as he put it.

I decided to ask Erin what exactly happened when I found her on the floor in her room, when she woke up. Until then, I thought sleepily, I'll try and get a bit of sleep. I hugged the sleeping bag close to me, feeling, for the first time, the bitter cold of the air around me, and snuggled as far in as possible. I drifted off to sleep, but as I did, I felt my body begin to vibrate and, like before, when I had visions, a warm flush flooded my veins, but this time, my body was nearer to shaking than vibrating, and the flush was more scalding than just warm. I closed my eyes finally, and the spinning began. When it ceased, I opened my eyes, but it was not an action of my own will, someone else was controlling my body, or more accurately, I thought, as I started walking and found I was outside, with Fire next to me, and that weird guy from the vision in front of us, leading the way, I was in Jam's body, and he was in control of it.

The man leads us to a small hut that looks as if it's been assembled at last minute.

"This is our command tent. We have to keep moving constantly, to evade Sinel's groups that are sent out to destroy our camps, and take us prisoner. We like to keep stuff easy and simple; it's quicker to pack up and go, that way," Lockhore says, and I wonder if it's true.

Lockhore turns to us, and leans in close, whispering, even though there's no one in the hut to hear him but us, "I have a friend who can put up wards and spells, magical barriers, if you will. These are designed to stop anyone from entering our camp without permission," He waits for that to sink in, but adds, as if we're stupid, and don't already get it, "Teleporting is classed as entering without permission. You teleported here. That should have been impossible,"

_Don't say anything, Jam, one wrong word, and we'll be dead before you can count to 5. _My sister's voice floats into my head, and I clench my hands in irritation. Jeez! Why was she suddenly in charge?

_Because I'm the oldest, cleverest and least likely to say something stupid, idiot, _Fire retorts, and I cuss under my breath as I realise that I'd accidently thought messaged Fire. I still couldn't control my stupid powers, and yet Erin and Fire acted as if it was a simple maths problem that only needed a second's concentration. It was so unfair!

"How did you get here?" Lockhore asks and I can detect a threatening tone in his voice.

Fire takes a breath, and, with a warning look at me to stop me intervening, begins to tell him about Erin and Sinel, and our escape plan. As she does, I look around nervously. Erin should have teleported here by now! Why wasn't she here? What had gone wrong? I could hear Lockhore speaking again, so I turn to look at him.

"You're friend, Erin, must be very powerful, to get past the spells my friend cast." And then, muttering, "I wonder... I wonder... This could be it! But... where is the fourth...?"

Fire steps forward, "The fourth?" She asks, and Lockhore blinks and looks up, as if he's only just remembered we're here.

"Nothing. Nothing. You must be tired, after your journey here, come, we shall find you somewhere to stay," He says, and I'm just about to point out that our journey was less than a second long, and that it was Erin that would be the tired one, when I hear Fire again, and she's guessed what I'm about to do.

_Don't say anything, for now, he's hiding something from us, but I doubt he will tell us straight away. We need to prove to him that we are not in league with Sinel, first._

_Sis I didn't understand half of the nonsensical words you added in there to annoy me, so, really there was no point bothering to tell me. _I think-speak back to her, and she grinds her teeth together in irritation. I grin to myself, as we follow Lockhore out of the tent.


	26. Chapter 25

Sorry I haven't posted in ages! I was really busy with school work and stuff! Here's another chapter

* * *

Dylan

It was dark, when I opened my eyes. I sat up, and wiped the sweat from my forehead. I heard someone moving around outside the tent, and guessed that the others were up. I climb stiffly out of my sleeping bag and quietly unzip the tent door. I step out into the frigid night and look around. Dan, Jack and Kathy were up already, and I spotted Amy packing up her little one-man tent. I went over to help her with the poles, and she smiled at me.

"Pretty grim story last night, huh?" She asked me

I shrugged as we collected the pins from in the ground.

"It mustn't have been nice having to hear it again,"

Amy sighed, "It wasn't, but, at least it keeps me reminded. Of my friends. Of what they fought for. You know?"

"Yeah, I guess," I muttered, more to myself, "What's the hurry with packing up, anyway?" I asked as I saw some of the others collapsing tents.

"We're not sure how far Sinel will go to try to get us back, especially since we know where his campus is, especially you. However, I'm willing to bet that a few fields are not going to prevent him from chasing after us. We got a long day ahead of us, and a lot of ground to cover."

I nod, "I'd better pack up my stuff and wake Erin up then."

"Yeah, you probably should,"

I headed over to our tent to find Erin climbing out. She had her backpack slung over her shoulder, and was wearing a pair of navy blue joggers and a grey t-shirt. It looked kind of like she'd been tipped upside down and drained of colour, but then, I don't think I'd ever seen her wearing something non-fluorescent.

We packed the tent up in relative silence, and I took the main parts of the tent, while Erin took the pegs and both our sleeping bags.

A short breakfast of bread, washed down with water from our bottles, and we set off in the direction of civilisation.

* * *

Erin

We walked across the fields at a pace that could be called leisurely, but was more like a slow jog. My meagre breakfast had left lot's to be desired, but I shoved it all to one side; I didn't want to seem whiny.

Dylan and I were straggling behind the others, the last in the group.

"So... What was life like before all this started?" I asked Dylan, waving my arms around at the field.

Dylan paused for a second, thinking, then said, "Believe it or not, very boring. I didn't really have much to do at home... What about you?"

I sighed, I supposed I'd asked for it, "I dunno, I suppose, it was never exactly what you could call interesting, but there was always someone to talk to, or something to do. I suppose you could call it busy,"

"Well, I don't think your life will ever lack any interest now," Dylan grinned.

"Neither will yours, I suppose," I said casually. I think we both could hear what I hadn't said; are you going to go back to your ordinary life, after 'all this'?

Dylan smiled sweetly, "Nah, too boring back home. I'm all for the life of adventure," He told me sincerely.

I grinned back, "What? Trudging through endless fields on a mission to get to some unknown figure that, hopefully, is a peaceful person, and (even more hopefully) find Jam and Fire, is that what you would really call adventure? I'd call it stupid, and then I'd ask myself how I'd even got myself into such a mess,"

Dylan shook his head grudgingly. "Yeah, though, neither of us really did much, most of the time, it was other people messing with us."

I chewed that over several times before replying, "Do you wonder about what's left behind? Even if you don't go back, what'll people think?"

Dylan shrugged, "They'll miss us, or be glad we've gone, but they'll get over it in the end, I suppose,"

"Yeah, suppose so," I mumbled.

Up ahead, Amy turned back to yell at us, "Hurry up, you guys, we're on a tight schedule here!"

I sighed and the two of us began to walk faster to catch up with the others.

"What time is it?" I asked as I sat with the others on my coat, in the middle of a field.

Dylan checked his watch, "3 in the morning,"

"Good," I grunted, "How far have we walked?"

Corrine and Jack looked up from the map they were studying, "We've walked about 10 miles. Another 10 miles to go, and about 5 hours until dawn," Jack informed me.

I groaned; my legs were killing me. Amy grinned sympathetically at me.

"Just imagine that luxury 5-star hotel, hot shower and 3 course meal waiting at the end of all this," She told me.

I sat up, "5-star hotel?"

Amy smirked, "No, actually, but we can take the bus from the next town,"

"Sob," I muttered.

Amy cracked up laughing.

"I don't see how you can laugh about this!" I said dramatically, "My life is over!"

Dylan shook his head, "You're crazy, you know that?"

"Well, if I don't think I'm that crazy, considering we all have 'super powers'"

Dylan considered that for a moment, "Good point,"

I noticed Dan, Kathy and Sam get up. "Are we moving on so quickly?" I asked despairingly; I was still exhausted and I wanted to have a good long sit down before we started moving again.

Kathy shook her head, "You ever heard the words 'practice makes perfect'?"

I scrunched up my nose, "That's a kinda stupid saying; no one's perfect,"

Amy rolled her eyes, "Kathy means that her, Dan and Sam are gonna go practice using their 'super powers'"

I turned to see the 3 better, "Awesome! Can I watch?"

"Sure, why not? Just remember to cover your eyes when Sam starts waving his hands around," Dan told me.

Sam and Kathy stood next to each other, facing Dan, who was looking pleadingly at Amy.

"Oh, fine!" She muttered, exasperated, and she got up to stand next to Dan.

Dylan scooted over to sit next to me, and we both watched as the four of them took up fighting stances, like in the movie. Legs braced arms out in front of them.

"No serious damage, guys, we want to head off again in an hour," Sam warned.

I frowned at them all. Were they practicing self defence, or their powers, for crying out loud?

Suddenly began to glow, like, really glow. She was like a glow-in-the-dark human. She continued to glow until you could only make out her figure; she was just a bright shape. Then, slowly, her figure distorted. I stared in shock as the glow disappeared, and I saw a lioness in Amy's place.

She leaped forward and pounced on Sam. Even as a lioness, I could tell she was grinning.

Corrine leaned in from behind us, "Amy's a shape-shifter. She can turn into almost any animal, as long as it isn't extinct or something. And no magical creatures, either," She told us.

I noticed Dan was frowning hard, and his outline was blurring slightly, seeming to get wider. I stared questioningly for a few seconds before I realised that there were 2 of Dan now. Then three. Then four. All four of Dan attacked Kathy immediately, and in synchronisation.

"Wow," I breathed.

"You took the words right out of my mouth," Dylan muttered, eyes glued to the fight.

Kathy was glaring furiously at one of the Dan's and beams- yes, beams- of red light was shooting from her eyes.

"Laser eyes, neat," Commented Dylan.

Dan 1, 2, 3, and 4 were busy dodging lasers, and but Sam was still pinned down by a jubilant Amy, who was sitting on his chest, leering at him, still in lion form.

Corrine tutted, "She should know not to do that by now. She isn't gonna be able to walk properly for at least an hour, and that's if Sam goes lightly. If she were teasing me like that, though, I wouldn't go anywhere near the word light,"

I turned to face Corrine, "Why? What can Sam do?"

Corrine grinned, "See for yourself," She nodded back at the others. I turned back just in time to see Sam smoking. Not using-a-cigarette smoking, like, on-fire smoking. Smoking, smoking. Ok, just ignore me.

Amy was now trying to hop off Sam, but he was holding onto her, grinning teasingly, just as she had been half a minute earlier. Coils of smoke were coming off Sam now, and I could see real fire on his chest. The fire spread outwards suddenly, like an explosion of fire, and a massive fire ball several metres wide formed around Sam and Amy.

"I thought she said she wouldn't be able to walk properly for an hour! That'll take forever to get over!" Dan demanded, horrified.

Amy popped up scowling but human, a minor burn on her forehead. She hauled up a smug looking Sam and marched over to us. The four Dan's were merging back into each other, but Kathy was already back to normal, and was grinning at Amy.

"Sam can control the temperature of the fire, so it could be freezing or boiling, but it will only hurt those around him; he'll be unharmed. Come over here Amy, that burn ain't gonna heal itself." Corrine told Amy.

Amy sat in front of Corrine, who placed a hand on her forehead and concentrated for a few seconds. Her hand came away, and the burn was gone.

"Wow, you're like, a healer,"

Corrine grinned, "I _am_ a healer, I'm not just _like_ one,"

"So what power do you have, Jack?"

"I can cast a few minor spells here and there. It's not exactly the most powerful weapon, put it sure is handy every once and a while," Jack said, grinning.

Amy, who was still being a sore loser, asked, "Aren't any of you joining in?"

Jack tutted, "I cast spells, not wrestle with animals, Amy, and Corrine's a healer. No offence there,"

"Non taken," Corrine mumbled, "I'm not one for violence anyway,"

"You guys?" Amy asked us.

Dylan was hesitant, and I remembered how quickly their powers came to them. I didn't know about Dylan, but it took my around 10 minutes, according to Fire, to teleport anything.

"You guys are so quick compared to me, it takes me ages to freeze time," Dylan admitted finally.

"Same here," I mumbled quickly.

"Oh, you just have the wrong technique," Jack explained.

Dylan and I frowned at him, "What?"

Jack grinned, "There are different and sometimes more efficient ways of accessing your powers. Actually, there are only 2 ways, and you can only use one way after you have chosen. However, I can use both because I cast spells,"

Dylan's face was a mask of confusion. I'm pretty sure my face had the same look.

Jack sighed, "It's simple really. I'm guessing you 2 were taught to think of two memories with contrasting emotions?" We nodded, and Jack continued, "Well, that's the first way of accessing your power. It works for the majority of people, but the second way is more effective for some people. It means you're quicker, you can use more of your power and need less rest, and, often, you can use your power in different ways. Only problem is, this way, your powers are linked to your emotions; if you're panicked or tired, or stressed, it'll be much harder to use your powers. Once you chose which way you access your power, you cannot go back, or change your mind. As a spell caster, I can use both ways, but, like I said before, you guys won't be able to."

"Ok then, show us the second way," I demanded eagerly.

Jack rolled his eyes, "You might want to ask Amy; she's dying to say something rather than have to sit and watch Sam being all smug,"

Amy scowled, but moved over to us. "To access your powers the other way, you have to be calm- which you know already, but still- so sit back and take some nice deep breaths. Ok, now, you've got to visualise what you want. So, Dylan, you could visualise something moving through the air, then stopping suddenly, but still hanging in the air. Erin," She told me, "You should just try to imagine whoever you're trying to teleport in whatever place you're trying to teleport them to, if you get what I mean. However, I've heard off someone that most teleporters find themselves in their own kind of personal space," She said, but it sounded like a question. I nodded, thinking of my boring, plain white 'personal space', "Well then, you could imagine instead, if you wanted to,"

I closed my eyes and imagined the pure white of my in-serious-need-of-decorations personal space. Instead of the usual, gradual slip away from the world thing, the change was immediate, and I found myself standing upright in my room. Note to self, I thought, find the time to repaint this place. I wondered for a second over who I should teleport, then decided on Dylan; it would be kinda funny. I chose a spot several metres away from everyone, and imagined Dylan. A ball of light appeared in my palm. I smiled; this was much easier than chasing after it. I brought up my hand so it was level with my chin, and blew gently on the light. It disappeared and I grinned, before I summoned up a picture of myself and returned to my body.

I stood up and turned to see everyone staring at Dylan, who was sitting up several metres away, wide eyed. I cracked up laughing.

"Okay, not in any way funny, Erin!" Dylan groaned, climbing to his feet.

"Sorry," I muttered, trying to keep a straight face.

"You know the worst part?" Dylan groaned, walking back to us, "I just had a vision of that happening!"

I couldn't help it; I burst out laughing again.

* * *

Dylan

Once Erin had gotten over the hilarity of my misfortune, Amy got back to persuading us to fight her and Kathy. Dan insisted he join in too, since we, apparently, held the advantage.

Erin looked up at me, "You want to try?"

"Sure," I shrugged, "Why not? But I blame you if anything bad happens,"

Erin grinned up at me, her face lighting up mischievously. If I hadn't seen that look on her face so many times –whether through a vision, or in real life- then I wouldn't have been too worried, but, since I had, I decided I was glad we were on the same team.

We moved away from the others and stood facing Amy, Kathy and Dan. Erin closed her eyes.

"Let's get this started!" She grinned.

Dan separated into four and Amy turned into a... kangaroo.

"Why did you-" My question was cut off as she threw herself at me. I threw my hands up and braced myself, closing my eyes. Nothing happened. I opened my eyes. Amy had disappeared.

I blinked, and realised that Erin must have teleported her. Erin who was now being attacked by four menacing looking Dan's. I started forward to help, but a beam of red light shot passed me. I yelped and jumped back quickly. Kathy charged at me.

I closed my eyes and imagined her stopping suddenly, freezing completely. The shouting and noise cut off completely. Well, almost completely.

"Um... yeah, a slightly, completely, utterly weird thing has just happened. Everyone appears to have stopped moving for no apparent reason... Oh, hi Dylan!" Erin grinned cheerily at me.

I stared at her, "How come you're not frozen?"

Erin shrugged, "Don't ask me, one minute I'm trying to chill out enough to teleport away, the next, I'm looking up to find Dan numero uno hovering right above me like he was in the middle of leaping on me,"

"I can freeze everyone but you." I murmured to myself, "Weird,"

Erin looked at me impishly, "Weird," She told me, "But pretty useful when we're on the same side,"

I looked at her, "That," I told her, realising what she meant, "Would be cheating,"

Erin shook her head, "No," She argued, "_that_ would be using our powers,"

I sighed, "If this were anyone else..." I began.

"Then they would be standing there frozen and you wouldn't be having this conversation," Erin interrupted me. She closed her eyes for a second, and Kathy and all four Dan's disappeared. Erin opened her eyes again.

"Interesting..." She murmured.

"What?" I asked, curious.

"Well, when I teleported Dan, I teleported all four of them. They may be separate, but it's still the same person. Jack could cast a spell on one Dan, and it would affect all of them, I suppose. Not exactly the best weakness to have,"

I shrugged, "Weakness aren't supposed to be good, otherwise they wouldn't be weaknesses," I pointed out.

Erin shrugged back, "Suppose so. Are we just gonna stand here all day, or can you unfreeze time now?"

I rolled my eyes and concentrated for a second. I didn't have to say anything; I just pictured everyone moving again, and time unfroze. Handy.

There was a few seconds of silence, and then I heard Dan from in 10 metres away.

"Ow!"

Corrine, Jack and Sam burst out laughing as four Dan's sat up scowling, and covered in mud and water. Kathy popped up next to them, considerably drier.

I turned to Erin, "I think we beat them, don't you?"

Erin grinned at me, "Dude, we kicked their butts!"

Amy appeared next to us, looking ever so slightly sullen, "Next time, you two fight separately," She grumbled.

Erin cocked her head sideways, inquiringly, "I wonder who would win that?"

I guessed she would, probably, since the only thing I could do was freeze time or anticipate where she would fling me. I didn't even mind that Erin could probably beat me hands down, although I probably would when we played against each other.

Sam, Corrine and Jack were packing away everything now, getting ready to go. I sighed and picked up my backpack, my legs still aching.

We packed up quickly and set off. The pace was slower than before, since we were all worn out, and we only walked another 5 miles before then sun started coming up, and we were forced to stop and pitch our tents.


End file.
